A WOMAN has spoken of her anger after her Facebook account was hacked, and friends were tricked into giving money.

Helen Baker says she was furious she could do nothing to stop the hackers pretending to be her, even after she reported it to police.

West Mercia Police are now urging people to confirm in person before making any deposit if a similar request is made on social media.

Mrs Baker said she first found out about the problem when she started receiving messages from friends asking if she had she had sent them Facebook messages, asking for money.

In them, the writer pretended to be the 46-year-old writing: “I’ve got some bills due tonight but my online banking is down. If I send you the details will you pay it for me please? It’s for £375. I can pay back.” Bank account details were then provided for potential victims to pay into.

“I told them that’s not me,” Mrs Baker said.

“I would never ask anyone for money, but three of my friends didn’t question it, and paid the money. It makes me feel sick. When they sent it - they even asked them for more. I tried to get into my account (to stop it), it wouldn’t let me in.”

Mrs Baker said after impersonating her, the scammers then started sending out messages to clients of her business, Nel’s Home Cleaning Service, for which her account is an administrator.

“They started chatting to my clients,” she said.

“I just didn’t know how to stop it.”

Detective Sergeant Jon Cooper said: “We have been made aware there is a scam that is looking to con people in Worcestershire by requesting they deposit money into a fake account.

“The fraudsters are doing this by hacking a victim’s account and then messaging the victim’s ‘friends’ asking them to lend them some money, normally around £400 and depositing the money in the fake account. Some local people’s businesses have also been targeted via Facebook.

“Sadly, some of these attempts have been successful and naturally the victims are feeling violated and taken advantage of. I would please urge everyone to be vigilant of this Facebook based scam and to never digitally deposit money to anyone’s account without confirming in person if possible it is in fact someone they know.

“Some online scams are very clever and very convincing.”

Police added people should use strong passwords and always update software and antivirus before using the internet.