Woman Stole £27,000 From Best Friend After Pretending She Was Dying

A woman was conned out of £27,000 ($35,486) by her best friend after she pretended she was dying.

Nicky Reynolds helped her pal Angela Kitchener pay for all kinds of things, having been fooled into thinking she had terminal cancer.

What's more, Angela said she was due to receive millions of pounds from her ex-husband, who she said had died in a farming accident, and she promised she would take care of Nicky once the funds came through.

ITV/This Morning

Opening up about the fraud on This Morning, Nicky said: "The pay-out was originally for £5 million ($6.57 million) from some stocks and shares that they had.

"Then when the ex-husband was killed in a farming accident her share of the money went up to £77 million ($101 million)."

She continued: "[Angela] was going through a divorce and she needed to keep afloat, while she was waiting for her money to come through.

"She had a good job and her hair was always done and nails done, so it did make sense and kind of didn't - she had a high lifestyle to keep."

Angela forged trust with Nicky by repaying a loan of £5,000 ($6,568) and asking her to be her maid of honour – though she needed to borrow money to help pay for the dress.

In total, Nicky ended up loaning Angela around £27,000.

She said: "I was [in debt], and I moved payments around to support her. My best friend had got cancer, she wasn't going to be here much longer, so it didn't matter.

"It was never about the money coming back, it was just about making sure she was happy and she was comfortable."

But Angela's deceit unravelled after Nicky met another of her friends, who was at the wedding, who had also lent her money.

"We hadn't realised at the time that we'd both guarantored loans for Angela," Nicky recalled.

"So we both got chatting about that and it was then that it was like, 'Hang on a minute, this isn't right'."

Nicky decided to go to the police and Angela eventually admitted to two counts of fraud and was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

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Nicky said she is hoping to recoup some of her losses once Angela is out of prison, and said she decided to share her story to make the public aware of fraudsters like her former friend.

She said: "I seriously didn't think that I'd be be believed [by police] – I'm not a daft woman, I'm just a normal person... I don't know what will happen when she comes out of prison, I haven't got a clue, but we'll be taking it from there."

You can find advice about what to do if you think you've been scammed on the Citizens Advice website.