A "devastated" mum claims she was scammed out of £150 for her daughter's Christmas present by a fraudster who targeted an autism support group on Facebook.
Shelly Harris, 43, was left £150 down and without a present for her daughter who has autism.
The mum said the scam centred around a PlayStation, which was supposed to be her daughter's Christmas present.
She had then posted in an autism support group about how to deal with the meltdown she expected her child to have.
Shelly, from Cornwall, told the Liverpool Echo she was then approached by a woman, claiming to be from Merseyside, who said she had a PlayStation 4 she would sell to her for £150.
However, the woman took the money but Shelly did not then receive a Playstation.
Shelly claims she has since been approached by a number of other people from the Wirral, Liverpool, who fear they have also fallen victim to the same scammer.
Shelly said: "She was messaging every day about how she has four children and one is autistic too.
"She was really overly friendly and even told me her husband has cheated.
"After I sent her the money she said that the PlayStation had been sent back to the post office, she has then deleted that whole account and is now untraceable. She just vanished."
Shelly added: "It’s just the fact she went on to an autism support group, where you’re supposed to be supporting each other but she's trying to rip someone off.
"I couldn’t do that to someone.
"I’m also upset and angry at myself for falling for it.
"But I’m also more upset that she knows my daughter has autism and she'd do that to a child on Christmas. I don't understand how they sleep at night."
Shelly now fears other people have also been swindled by the woman after posting about the incident on a Wirral Facebook crime group to make people aware.
Describing what happened and posting a screen-grab of the Facebook page that scammed her, Shelly received dozens comments from people claiming the account was ‘prolific’ and had also taken money from a number of Wirral residents.
Shelly posted to say she was "devastated to have fallen for it" and "let her kids down".
She also said another woman messaged her saying she paid £350 for a MacBook that never arrived.
She said: "I put into a few groups I thought we'd been scammed and loads of people said that they were aware of the account.
"Another person also messaged me to say she had taken £350 for a MacBook and then vanished.
"She uses a number of different pictures and names and apparently she was doing it a lot in Wirral.
"Now that more people were aware of her in Wirral clearly she is starting to go further afield , going into groups and support groups and taking advantage of them that way."
