Before her death at 92, three years ago, my mother was pestered with scam mail for about 10 years, mostly from the Netherlands, the States and Canada and also Spain. She behaved in a very secretive way about constantly sending off money to these people. She parted with tens of thousands of pounds. In return she sometimes received 'gifts' of small, trashy trinkets.

She also started to receive mail from so-called clairvoyants, who were actually quite threatening, promising bad luck if she did not respond. My solicitor did contact some of the scammers, but there was little result.

0ne of the worst offenders, in the sense of getting money out of my mother, was Readers Digest, who most people consider to be reputable. She was tempted, by very clever wording and promises of free gifts, into buying hundreds of books and cds, (she didn't even have a cd player).

When he realised the extent of her purchases, my husband contacted R.D.ånd after a bitter struggle, during which he told them exactly what he thought of their methods and threatened legal action, they reluctantly removed her from their mailing list. They know they have a vulnerable market.

Valerie J. Docherty

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My mum was fake lottery victim

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