A mother of four who sold a Christmas present to make ends meet after her partner was made redundant has told of her anger after the money she received turned out to be fake.

Kris Davies took the decision to sell her two-month-old Nintendo Wii games console after her scaffolder partner, Wayne Stroud, was laid off.

The full-time housewife had intended to use the money to buy birthday presents for her niece and one of her daughters.

But the phoney buyer, who travelled from Marlow to Ms Davies’s home in Purslane, Abingdon, paid with £130 of worthless counterfeit currency.

Ms Davies, 29, said: “My partner lost his job over five weeks ago. We’ve been trying to get money through the social and job seeker’s allowance but the only money we’re receiving at the moment is child benefit, which I get monthly.

“So the end result was we started selling things to make ends meet. I was given a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and we initially put it up for sale at £170 but I was so desperate for every penny that we accepted £130.”

After the ad appeared on the online classifieds site Gumtree, the buyer called Ms Davies and arranged to collect the Wii.

Ms Davies said: “My partner spoke to the man and took the money.

“As soon as I saw it I thought ‘that doesn’t look right’.

“There were no creases, they were all very crisp. We just assumed they must be new notes.”

On Thursday, Ms Davies tried to pay for her shopping at Tesco with some of the notes.

She said: “The woman said they didn’t look right and she took them to a colleague to check them. I handed them all the notes I had been given and they all turned out to be fake.

“I was mortified. I was so shocked, and then the emotions took over. It was my niece’s birthday and I was trying to get her a present.”

The family are now warning others to be wary of fake cash.

Ms Davies’s mum, Karen, said: “She’s absolutely devastated. She’s a very strong girl and she doesn’t show emotion easily, but she just broke down.

“There must be lots of people out there having to sell stuff like this, so we just want them to be aware that there are people like this out there.

“It’s one thing to do it in a shop, but to to do it to a mother-of-four is just wrong.

“It’s hard enough as it to bring yourself to sell Christmas presents.”

Kris, who is mum to Jade, 10, Chelsea, five, Megan, four, and Callum, two, added: “He could see I had four young children. To do a sick thing like that is disgusting.”

A Gumtree spokesman said: “We have a dedicated safety team which aims to respond to any reports of suspected fraudulent activity within 12 hours, and we have a rotating safety tips on Gumtree that provide advice about what to watch out for to help users have as safe an experience as possible.”

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