An Halton resident has narrowly escaped being scammed when she received a Facebook friend request from a distant relative.

The woman has a cousin living in America with whom she occasionally has contact.

The lady received a friend request from her American cousin which she thought was strange because they were already Facebook friends but, because she knew the person making the request, she accepted it again.

Her cousin then became a lot more active on Facebook sending lots of messages asking about how the family was. The cousins chatted to each other for a while but then the Halton resident became suspicious that the person she was corresponding with was not her cousin: what they said didn’t feel right and the grammar wasn’t good. Even so, the lady continued to reply to the messages.

The ‘cousin’ then said that she’d won a lot of money with a particular company, she’d seen that her English cousin had also won money with them and she should contact them to claim her winnings. The lady then suspected a scam and stopped replying.

Scammers will pose as people you already know, even setting up fake profiles and accounts, in attempt to get personal information or money from you.

If you receive a friend request from somebody that you’re already friends with:

• Ask the person you’ve already accepted as your friend if they have created a new profile. If they didn’t then the request will be from a scammer so do not accept it. Your friend will want to know about the fake profile so they can warn their friends not to accept new friend requests in their name.

• If you believe the profile is fake mark the user as spam.

• Let Facebook know that the profile is pretending to be somebody else:

1. Go to the profile of the impersonating account. If you can’t find it, try searching for the name used on the profile.
2. Click on the cover photo and select ‘Report’
3. Follow the on-screen instructions for impersonation to file a report

Halton Borough Council’s Executive Board Member for Trading Standards, Cllr Dave Cargill, said: “If you or somebody you know has been caught out by a scam please contact one of our specialist officers, Linda or Sue on 0151 511 8785 or 0151 511 8775, who are already working with people in Halton who have lost thousands of pounds to scams.”

If you need advice on anything else please contact the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline or 03454 04 05 06