A grieving son was left horrified after receiving messages on Facebook from someone pretending to be his dead mother.
Andrew Barnsley was confronted with the deeply upsetting message saying his mum, who died two years ago, wanted to connect with him.
Linda Barnsley died aged 46 from heart failure, but a scammer or sick hoaxer used her picture and name to contact Andrew, 20.
The call centre worker from Paisley in East Renfrewshire, Scotland, posted the images to social media and asked for help tracking down the culprit.
He shared the screenshots with the caption: “Losing my mum two year ago was the hardest thing I’ve ever went through and it still breaks my heart.
"And some wee sick c*** thinks they can sit and make a fake messenger of her and mail me."
He added: “Does anyone know a way I can track this to whoever has done this and f ** punch f*** out them?”
The conversation begins with a message from the fake account saying: “Hello, how you doing?”, followed by two kisses.
Andrew replies saying: “Who the f*** is this?”, before getting a message back saying “Hi it’s Linda.”, again with two kisses.
Andrew then replies saying: “ This is f* sick as f* why the f* would whoever this is create a profile of my dead mum?"
@conorhughes_ wrote under Andrew’s post: “That’s f * shocking mate hope they get whats f**** coming to them.”
@mollyfinn__ added: “So sorry to see this but it’s people from other countries copying as many profiles as possible and messaging people in their friend lists - a scam to try and get money eventually. They know nothing about the profiles they’re copying.”
@Jxss_olivia19 said: “Happened to me day before my dad's funeral. Its f ** sick in the head some extremes people go to.”
Speaking today, Andrew said: “I honestly have no idea if it’s a scammer or someone thinking it’s a funny joke. I would hope it’s a scammer but I won’t have closure of it until I know.
“My mum was 46 when she passed of heart failure unexpectedly when I was 18 at the time."
He added: “My mother was also my best friend and my everything so it makes it a lot harder when something like this happens.
“It happened last night and obviously it completely caught me off guard and I was shocked as I’m just sitting watching Netflix with my girlfriend and it says my mum wants to connect with me on Facebook.
“I clicked on it and seen the message and instantly burst into tears and I think I kept crying for another two hours in shock and I was upset at the fact that someone would do this."
Andrew said doing something like this is sickening, but added he had no reported it Facebook as that may remove the message - which he wants to keep so the police can use it.
