If you get any money from the Dutch government in the form of social benefits of any kind, they’ll now reserve the right to come in your house to search it for fraud:
While everybody has been distracted by other news, the Dutch Senate quietly passed two laws that allow the government to enter into people’s homes on suspicion on fraud without having a shred of proof. The second law states that anybody caught committing fraud for the second time will see their entire income automagically disappear for five whole years.
Anybody on benefits of any kind is ‘at risk’ of having a pencil pusher at their door at any time now. As well, anybody who receives money in the form of a government allocation (kids, housing, etc.) is also a candidate for a pencil pusher’s visit. Old people and parents are not amused.
It’s something that has been slowly creeping into the “debate” over social benefits here, the incessant need to be able to check up to see if somewhere, someone is cheating the taxpayer and nothing is sacred to make sure this doesn’t happen. And if you do “cheat”, you deserve to die in poverty.
But let’s not do anything about those poor bankers who made millions through losing billions, legally and illegally.
dick gregory
October 13, 2012 at 12:10 amThe Americans got there first.
If you’re poor, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to you
Don Fitch
October 13, 2012 at 10:19 amI suppose some Dutch recipients of social benefits utilize fraud. My Image of Dutchness, however, suggests that this rare, and that the Campaign to eradicate will not be cost-effective. Rather like the Executive Decision (at the Los
Angeles County Arboretum where I used to work) to monitor the Petty Cash more closely. The first year, they saved almost $75.00 — at the cost of …ummm… something like $300.00 worth of a senior secretary’s time.
Alex
October 21, 2012 at 2:46 pmparable:
I landed in Schiphol last Sunday, and I found all those big yellow ticket machines on the station, but none of them take British cards (I’d actually had this experience before), so I bought a Spiegel to get change, but they wouldn’t give me coins because it was against the rules, so I had to queue up in the ticket office. Where a very polite railwayman sold me a ticket and told me unasked which platform it was and when the train was coming, and then charged me a 50 cent surcharge for not using the machine like an efficient person.
KPN is a major leader in M2M technology and so much of that stuff strikes me as amazingly creepy.