A GRIEVING son was horrified to receive a Facebook Messenger contact – from his late 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 just 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, East Renfrewshire, 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 a message from the fake account that was created recently saying: “Hello, how you doing?” followed by two kisses using the cross key
Andrew replies to the fake account with saying: “Who the f*** is this?”
He then gets the message: “Hi it’s Linda.” This is followed by two kisses.
Andrew then replies saying: “ This is f***** sick as f**** why the f*** 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.”
@chlopohutch wrote: “The exact same thing happened to my family, we got messages saying ‘hi how are you doing?’ too. Absolutely horrible felt so sick.”
@kaela_nobile commented: “Really sorry to see this. An absolute sin. it’s a common hack nowadays where people from all over the world take Facebook details and create a Facebook pretending to be that person to try and get money. Absolutely disgusting.
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.
“The things me and many others would do to speak to a passed parent and people want to do stuff like that makes me sick.
“It’s just more anger now the raw hurtful emotion is out I just want to get a closure if it’s someone scamming or trying to be sick.
“I haven’t reported it to Facebook yet as it will just remove my message and I want to keep it there and take it to the police so they can use it.”
