Charlotte Anderson, 46, a self-proclaimed ‘PIP consultant’ has reportedly made dozens of videos telling tens of thousands of viewers how to claim benefits, known as Personal Independence Payments, for physical and mental health conditions.
The woman has chronic fatigue and severe arthritis uses her platform to direct viewers to her digital shop front, which offers paid services ranging from £60 for a ‘document check’ to £650 in exchange for a two-hour meeting and the filling out of an entire claim form.
How to Claim PIP – Personal Independence Payments
Now she’s working as a full-time YouTuber and disability advocate. She also rents out her bungalow and lives in the shed she broadcasts from.
Ms Anderson receives the maximum PIP – now £798.63 per month. Before that, she worked as a contracts manager at a logistics company.
How PIP Assessment Works
PIP is not means-tested, so Ms Anderson can receive payouts regardless of her income, savings or assets. She is feeling ‘booming’ for having more than one income.
In January, she had 33 clients and was forced to temporarily stop offering appointments because the consultancy was ‘too successful’.
She Has 100% Success Rate
Many of her videos open with the declaration that she has a ‘100 per cent success rate at winning PIP’.
Ms Anderson says that, in half of the cases she wins, her clients ‘have purely mental health conditions’ – as opposed to any physical illness or disability.
In one video about scoring highly on the PIP assessment with a mental health issue, she declares: ‘You have to be able to explain to PIP how you feel, so if you struggle with anxiety you have to explain how it feels for you.’
The YouTuber has also said: ‘People get so obsessed with evidence – you don’t need loads of evidence, you just don’t. No doctor, no specialist, no psychologist can explain how you feel.’
She admits that fraudsters could be watching her videos and using her tips to wrongly win benefits: ‘Yes there are going to be fakers that watch my videos and try to abuse the system – that is PIP’s job to manage that.
‘I know the Department for Work and Pensions are monitoring me… I don’t care.’
Updates on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
British taxpayers are shelling out an astonishing £292 million a year in disability benefits to people claiming to have ADHD.
Investigation shows that spending on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) claims has shot up from just £700,000 per year in 2013 – a rise of more than 41,000 per cent, per DailyMail.
The payments are included in a staggering £5.1 billion of public sector cash given out last year under Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for mental disorders, compared with £34.4 million in 2013, when the scheme was introduced.
Recipients do not always need a medical diagnosis, nor are they means tested – so they are free to earn other income or have hefty savings.
