Massive insurance fraud revealed in Hamar

NAV South Western NorwayNAV,logo.Photo: Norway Today Media

Every sixth unemployed in Hamar has been overpaid in benefits. NAV think most have deliberately defrauded the system.

NAV Hamar went through all of the 450 who are currently receiving unemployment benefits in the municipality, writes Hamar Arbeiderblad.

Status card where the job seeker must fill out how many hours he or she works is held up against the so-called State Register which was introduced on January 1st in 2015 whereby employers must report how much each employee works.

In 72 of the 450 cases they found that it was not consistent between what they report which means that the job seekers had entered less hours on their employment status forms than what in reality they had worked.

In many cases they report some few hours while they have worked like full time employment. In many other cases, they have given far fewer hours than what the State Register shows.

Helmik S. Kristiansen, department head at NAV Hamar, is informing that NAV believes that most of this is deliberate fraud.

– We have very good information meetings for all who register as a job seeker and receive unemployment benefits.

When the scale is this degree we are reasonably confident that the vast majority have done this deliberately, say Kristiansen to the newspaper.

He has no accurate record of how big the total fraud amount is but he says it is about a million.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today