A LYDNEY pensioner says she was almost tricked into giving money to a caller who told her she had won a Canadian cash prize competition worth £350,000.

"I never enter competitions. The reason I was initially fooled was because my daughter and sons sometimes enter some in my name," said the woman, who did not want to be named, although she wanted others to be aware of the scam.

"He congratulated me and asked what I was going to do with the money. Then he said he needed a £1,200 transaction fee because the money was sent as a bankers' draft, and he gave me a number of a Natwest account to put it in," she said.

"I was wary from the start, but then he said it was a confidential matter and I should not tell anyone at all about it until the money was in my bank.

"He said he would call back when he had received my money, but I told him I was going out and he said he would ring at 10am the next day. I was out then too but when I returned my answerphone has registered two calls.

"I checked with my children but as I thought none of them had put my name in a competition. I told the police but they said they could do nothing because he hadn't actually taken any money from me."

However they did advise anyone who had such a call to never send any money or bank details that could be used by the criminals behind the scam.