A FACEBOOK fraudster was seconds away from conning a Huddersfield family out of hundreds of pounds by posing as a distressed relative.

The hacker stole an account on the social networking website belonging to Michelle Malpas’s cousin.

They then sent Michelle messages cruelly claiming her relative had been the victim of a gunpoint robbery and begging for cash.

Only a last-minute call scuppered the scam.

Now Michelle, of Sunnyhill Avenue in Kirkheaton, is warning other users to be on the look-out for internet imposters.

She said: “We were shocked that we so nearly fell for it.

“I just want to warn people. If anybody asks you to send money, don’t – unless you have spoken to them first.”

Michelle, 29, had logged on to Facebook on Tuesday evening when a message popped up on the instant ‘chat’ function, apparently from her cousin Joanne, who lives in Wakefield.

The family have asked us not to print Joanne’s last name because of the concerns raised as a result of the incident.

Within minutes, the hoaxer told Michelle that Joanne and her husband had been the victim of a robbery in Cardiff.

The message said: “We got mugged last night at gunpoint. Andrew got beaten up. He just got out of the hospital.”

The imposter claimed they had lost mobile phones, credit cards and cash before asking for help.

Distressed by what she had been told, Michelle told her dad, Paul, and sister, Nicola, that Joanne needed their help.

They offered to contact other family members and travel to Wales to pick the couple up, but were told they only wanted a loan to cover hotel bills and pay for bus travel.

In one message the scammer said: “Need a quick loan from you to get things fixed out here so we can get back home. Promise to refund when we are back home.”

They convinced the Malpas family to wire £350 to a Western Union money transfer office in Cardiff, before the real Joanne rang to tell them it was a hoax.

Michelle said other family members had already fallen victim to the con before the fraudster was exposed.

“In hindsight, we should have realised that my cousin is a very level-headed person and would not have acted in this way,” Michelle said.

“But panic had set in and we started getting the wheels in motion trying to help someone who we thought was in trouble.”

It is thought the fraudster hacked into a personal e-mail account belonging to Joanne to gain access to password details for Facebook.

They then used details added by Joanne to her personal profile on Facebook to create a convincing impression.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said the company was investigating such incidents. She said: “This is a very low-volume attack, affecting only a small number of people.

“However, we’re concerned about any potential security threat and we’re taking this issue very seriously.

“Our team has analysed the trends of these attacks and is using this information to discover compromised accounts before the scammers get very far.

“When we find these accounts, we disable them and attempt to get them back to their rightful owner.

“In many cases, the scammer has changed the password or added a new contact email to attempt to maintain control of the account.

“To combat this, we notify people when their account is modified and empower them to reverse the changes or disable the account entirely.”

West Yorkshire Police are investigating the matter as suspected fraud.