Greek Pension Fraud – Families claiming pension for dead relatives

This is all over the news in Greece. The spin seems to be how dishonest Greeks are.

Let me tell you, this is a global problem. Wherever the government oversees pension payments there is fraud.

Here are some examples.

Ireland

MORE than €18m was paid out in pensions during the past two years to people who were dead, the Irish Independent has learned.

Nearly 10,000 ‘phantom pensioners’ were only discovered when the Department of Social Protection cross-checked its pension payments against the death records held by the General Register Office.

and Japan, probably the most honest people in the world? 

More than 230,000 Japanese people listed as 100 years old cannot be located and many may have died decades ago, according to a government survey released today.

The justice ministry said the survey found that more than 77,000 people listed as still alive in local government records would have to be aged at least 120, and 884 would be 150 or older.

Why the Greek media is now making such a big deal of a year old story is anyone’s guess.

Actually scratch that, make it an 18month old story.

This is another reason for reducing the size of government, if one was needed.

Something like this shows how the Greek government is paying out cash without checking where the money is going. It is like the Greek government had no control.

But you can assume the same care free attitude is prevalent through every aspect of government and goes a large way to explaining how the greek government despite taking mountains of cash from Greeks still cannot provide decent and safe services and infrastructure and at the same still spending dramatically more than they take it.

Germany is absolutely correct, the Greek government bureaucracy is a black hole.

But perhaps the biggest irony of the whole pension “fraud” situation is that while thousands of people may have been claiming pensions they were not entitled to, the Greek government is simultaneously not paying around 400,000 who are entitled to a state pension.

Get the latest updates in your inbox