THE Furness community has rallied in support of a Dalton gran after she was scammed out of £315.

Katherine Jones, 69, of Queen Street, Dalton was targeted by online fraudsters and conned out of the money through Facebook messenger.

Mrs Jones was convinced by the scammer that she would receive a cash grant if she bought iTunes vouchers and sent them the codes through social media.

Residents of Barrow have rallied in solidarity with Mrs Jones and have set up donation pages and raffles to reimburse her for the money she lost.

Cheryll Jordan, 48, from West Way, Barrow, set up a Facebook fundraiser to help raise the money.

She said: “I don’t know Katherine and I only know her son through social media, but when I saw what he put up on Facebook I was gutted for her.

“My uncle, who’s in his 70s, has been scammed before, I felt sick to my stomach when I found out about my uncle so I know how the family feels.

“So far we’ve had lots of support, we’ve reached over £100 in a day.

“It just goes to show there are wonderful people out their who want to help and don’t want to scam them.”

Businesses from around the area have also pledged their support to raise money for the grandmother of nine.

Paul Griffiths and his wife Maureen, who own The Candle Box in the ginnel between Portland Walk and Dalton Road, have decided to raffle off £100 worth of candles in the hopes of getting Mrs Jones her money back.

Mr Griffiths said: “When we read the article about Mrs Jones we felt really bad.

“We have elderly relatives so we just imagined if it had been one of them, we both had a talk about what we could do to help and decided on raffling some of our products off.

“We have five candles to give away and if people put a pound in they could end up wining them.”

Mr Griffiths said the raffle will run over the weekend and will be probably be drawn on Sunday (9).

The owners of The Candle Box are hoping to raise as close to £315 as possible but said even if they don’t the raffle stands.

The family of the pensioner who was targeted by scammers have said they are overwhelmed by the support shown by the community.

Anthony Park, the son of the scam victim, 49, of Broughton Road, Dalton, said: “I’m absolutely delighted by it all.

“I was knocked back when it happened to my mum but it’s knocked me back even more after seeing all the support she’s getting.

“We are very, very grateful to everyone.”

More information about the raffle can be found on The Candle Box’s Facebook page.

Or you can help by donating through to the Facebook fundraiser at www.facebook.com/donate/233875713950265.