I’m so angry with my friend of 30 years. Do I tell her?

[Hillfarmer]

Once of my closest friends has told me she has just committed insurance fraud. I am incensed.

We have been close friends for decades and seen each other through all sorts of ups and downs life has thrown at us. She had the benefit of a brilliant education, happy family life, loving parents etc. She has an interesting and stimulating job, is noted in her field, owns her own house, has dc, is not short of money and travels widely.

When we last met up, she told me she had made a false claim on her travel insurance. I don’t want to give too many details but safe to say the claim would be worth at least £1000.

I am absolutely outraged. The more I think about it, the more furious I am. It is fraud. She must have lied through her teeth. She is taking the piss out of all of us who pay our premiums in the hope that we don’t have to claim. My ( and everyone else’s) premiums cost more because of people like her. And she saw fit to tell me...bold as bloody brass!

I as grumpy with her when she blithely told me, said I couldn’t believe she’d done this, but it could have come across as ironic or jokey. And it wasn’t till afterwards that I fully recognised how absolutely fucking angry-making it was. I’m also really angry that she thought it was OK to tell me! I now feel burdened with this information. I haven’t wanted to speak to her since that meeting and I just don’t know what to say, since I am seething.

Thing is...she is a very old and, despite everything, a valued friend. Should I tell her how I feel. And what would I be doing apart from telling her off? I don’t want this to be an end to our friendship, but i don’t feel I can let it go.

I’ve been pondering this on my own, and really don’t know where it leaves our friendship. But there is absolutely no excuse (if ever there is) for what she has done.

Why are some posters saying op is envious

I suggested that because reacting in an explosion of anger, "absolute fury" and "outrage" ..so fucking angry etc would indicate that there has been a bitterness or resentment bubbling away for some time? I'm not a therapist but where is all that rage coming from?

I don't think I've ever felt that level of anger in my life.

It might be worth considering if there is something else fueling such an extreme reaction.

Seriously? Do you think OP's reaction to their friend stealing £1000 from an individual, or shoplifting a £1k laptop from a shop would be based on envy

Yes I do , because a normal moralistic reaction would be shock, disappointment, dismay, sadness, even disgust.

Not to be “furious”, “seething”, to say you’re personally “being made a mug of” to feel “absolute fury”, “fucking angry making” and all the other choice words rhe op is using.

That indicates there is more to this than simply a moral High ground. This is a personal resentment. And a big one.

This is about the friend has it all, the op doesn’t, it’s been bubbling away and now it’s let loose. No one, but no one reacts with this seething fury, using her words, in this scenario unless there is something else behind it.

So yes I think it’s based on envy, resentment, bitterness or some other feelings she had. And let’s face it she could just have said my friend is successful and wealthy, but she didn’t, she went into detail of just how charmed the friends life was.

This is steeped in envy all day long.

I'd wonder how said friend was pulling this off. As others have said you usually need some sort of proof of purchase to claim on insurance?

I'd disapprove of someone doing this but it certainly wouldn't ruin a long-standing friendship. My friends have stuck by me through all sorts of morally dubious shit. I do the same for them. Perhaps we have low standards.

I don't think I've ever felt that level of anger in my life

Me neither, I’m not sure what it would take for me to feel “absolute seething fury” but my friend commiting insurance fraud wouldn’t be it, That would cause me to have other emotions, dismay, confusion, etc, but certainly not absolute seething fury.

But I’m not envious of my friends finances.

Wanting guidance and context, posting for opinions, doesn't really match having made your mind up to be absolutely seething with rage. You only post for other views when you are split, conflicted, not feeling like a very nice person for looking down on your old mate.

I'd struggle to be friends with someone who did this too, @Hillfarmer. What it stands for, the lack of integrity.

No advice but totally understand.

The other clear indication this is envy is this statement the op makes

“ I have examined my conscience, and I don’t think I am jealous of her”

If you’re not jealous you know it, you don’t think and you don’t need to examine your conscience. You know.

I know I’m not envious of my friends, I don’t need to examine my conscience to know this, and I don’t say I “i don’t think I am” which indicates uncertainty,

YANBU

Totally agree with Bluntness and SmileyClare. OP has had the green eyed monster over her friends better life for quite a while and this has just hit the blue touch paper

Strange so many people saying you shouldn't care because it doesn't affect you. I wonder if they feel that way about all crimes?!

I mean this in a light-hearted way, maybe you should write for one of the soaps? Seriously though do you need this drama in your life? Ask her then move on

I get it OP. She's not the person you thought she was and you're struggling to compare 30 years of close friendship with the person you now see in front of you.

It's rather odd, because it's not clear whether friend has just submitted their claim, had it paid out, purchased new item with dosh. Has it definitely been successful? It's a bit odd to be saying something about the fraud at a time after it's all been done and dusted. " D'you like my new iPad?", sure, you might say it, but not admit deceit, by bothering to add " The device, by the way, which I got due to doing a bit of sharp dealing with those sharks at Nat West". If insurance company hadn't agreed or disagreed yet, the friend may have said: " I think I might be getting a new laptop in time for my birthday, if Legal and General pay out. And if the suckers do, I won't need to take my nephew's old one.". OP would have had time to warn and stop her then, if the crime was still in the early stages of being attempted.

Surprised no mention in post of uncertain, mischievously happy, ordinary attitude - or whatever - of old friend, as those reactions would be the affectingly shocking bit.

If this isn't fuelled by jealousy, and you've said it isn't, then the fact that you emphasised her affluent lifestyle suggests that you would be more understanding and less inclined towards anger if your friend was in dire need. If that's the case, then your moral aversion to what she did is hypocritical. You have every right to disapprove, but you need to be consistent in your disapproval.

Strange so many people saying you shouldn't care because it doesn't affect you. I wonder if they feel that way about all crimes?!
I don't know why I don't think I'd get upset enough for it to impact me but I think it's that it's not the same as most crimes. So if she'd physically or mentally done something to a person, hurt an animal etc I think I'd understand being livid shocked etc but I just think I'd be disapproving and disappointed but not seething and wondering how we could be friends. I honestly dont know why!!!

Were there other red flags before this? She bought you a Porsche/house/helicopter for your birthday?!

Are you unhappy in your life generally OP? I find I make a much bigger deal about things and become quick to anger when I'm dissatisfied in my life

This

I have never committed insurance fraud but insurance companies are multi-million dollar businesses, so my heart doesn't bleed for them.

It would actually take a lot for me to throw away a friendship.

@ClinkyMonkey

If this isn't fuelled by jealousy, and you've said it isn't, then the fact that you emphasised her affluent lifestyle suggests that you would be more understanding and less inclined towards anger if your friend was in dire need. If that's the case, then your moral aversion to what she did is hypocritical. You have every right to disapprove, but you need to be consistent in your disapproval.

Crimes do have mitigating factors.

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/explanatory-material/magistrates-court/item/aggravating-and-mitigating-factors/

"Factors indicating lower culpability:
• a greater degree of provocation than normally expected;
• mental illness or disability;
• youth or age, where it affects the responsibility of the individual defendant;
• the fact that the offender played only a minor role in the offence"

So it's perfectly reasonable to show more sympathy and understanding to one perpetrator over another. The woman who has murdered her husband after years of mental abuse for example.
If she stole the money to feed her family because they were struggling financially she would have this as a mitigating factor. To steal the money just because she can would not be.

I think you should have told her how you felt immediately but if it's bothering you this much still, tell her how you feel. Try not to rant and rage, though.

I know how you feel OP. I let one of my friends go when I discovered she was shoplifting in front of her kids, things she could afford to buy

She even implied she would be bringing up her kids to do the same because it's great to get things for free.

I lost respect for her. Sounds like you're in a similar situation.

i wouldn’t care tbh, now if she was claiming whiplash it would be a different story.

It wouldn't bother me.a But if after 3 decades of friendship you can't tell her how you feel then it can't be that strong a friendship. If you are absolutely seething over this then just drop the friendship. What's the point of it if you feel judgey, and will think about situation every time you see her? & if she told you without realising the strong reaction you'd have then she doesn't know you as well as she thinks she does either. If you tell her, she might drop you as a friend anyway. Don't be friends with someone whose morals don't suit yours. Let it go, or let her go.

It's a serious crime, and it's also a very pre-meditated sort of crime.

I think to some extent people think of it as less serious because it isn't targeting one individual, and a lot of people, quite rightly IMO, see the insurance industry as exploitative.

I can actually kind of understand a view that says, if they are going to exploit us, we should exploit them right back, that's the game. But it's so socially destructive on both sides.

As far as feeling enraged, I think that is not unusual when you feel put in a difficult position, or as if something you valued - being the friendship has been threatened.

Personally I would not likely bring it up again but I imagine it would change my view of her. I had a friend I discovered regularly paid for a certain number of self--collect items at a shop, and always collected a few more. I was a bit shocked but she saw nothing wrong with it and in fact assumed everyone did it. It was in a way trivial but I also felt it reflected badly. A few years later she had an affair with a guy married to someone else.

What made her do it?

I wouldn't want a friendship either to be honest. Itsa pretty big lie, what else does she lie about?