This Nevada mom collected nearly $20K by claiming she had cancer, only for a close friend to expose her long-running scheme

Charity, or giving back to the community, is a noble thing for anyone to do, but sometimes people exploit this feeling and passion as a Ponzi scheme for their own benefit. A similar incident took place in Nevada, where a woman scammed more than $20,000 from donors by claiming she was suffering from cancer. She kept taking money from people until a close friend exposed her fraudulent scheme.

According to People, Haleigh Knight set up a GoFundMe, posing as a cancer patient taking money from donors, while she did not actually have cancer. Hailey was then exposed by a friend, and a case was filed against her in court. She eventually pleaded guilty to charges of having scammed people out of more than $20,000, as reported by KSNV, KLAS and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Per the court documents reviewed by the source, Knight was charged with theft of more than $5,000 but less than $25,000. 

Knight pleaded guilty to theft and will be penalized in June. With felony charges of theft, she could see up to five years in prison, but despite getting the punishments, she still would have to pay around $20,000 in restitution to the people who paid her while she was lying about her illness, per the Review-Journal.

GoFundMe has banned Knight from the platform for life in response to her scam

We have heard about a woman being scammed out of $52K on Facebook Marketplace, but this case is nothing less. GoFundMe has responded quite strongly to Knight’s exploitation of the platform. GoFundMe’s spokesperson affirmed that their platform has no sympathy for the people who exploit other people’s generosity. When the whole story came out, and they were confirmed that the woman had scammed people, they banned her for life.

The company’s spokesperson, talking to the media, stated, “GoFundMe has zero tolerance for bad actors who seek to take advantage of the generosity of others. “The organizer’s account has been banned from using our platform for any future fundraisers. Being a safe and trusted place to give and receive help is our top priority, and we work with law enforcement investigations of those accused of wrongdoing.” 

Even though the accused woman is a scammer and faces significant social scrutiny, her sentence can still be reduced. According to court documents, she could have her felony charge reduced to a misdemeanor if she repays $19,787.12 in restitution and completes probation and other conditions. No reports suggest that she has returned the money.