Irish Daily Mail

Hacked: Singer Margo’s Facebook page targeted in bogus charity scam

- By Linda McGrory

COUNTRY singer Margo has revealed that she was targeted by fraudsters who tried to scam money from her loyal fans for a fake orphanage.

The Donegal star, 67, who is the eldest sister of Daniel O’Donnell, said her Facebook page was hacked last month and warned followers that ‘any suspicious messages are definitely not from me’.

Some fans admitted they were nearly taken in by the ‘nasty’ scammers who called themselves ‘Margo Donegal’ and were looking for money and gift cards for needy orphans.

‘At first, I believed them, but not after they said they wanted gift cards,’ one follower posted on the singer’s official page. ‘And to scratch the silver line off and then text the code number to them so that they can then use it to buy things for the orphanage! By this time, I knew it was a stitch-up. They began by saying “thank you for all the likes and nice comments” on your site.’

Margo, whose Facebook account is ‘Margo – The Girl from Donegal’, told fans she would not fundraise in this manner. ‘I would never ask for money for orphanages or any other charity on social media,’ the Monaghan-based singer said.

It comes a week after Fiona Tuomey revealed that fraudsters had created a fake Facebook profile in her name to raise donations in her late daughter’s memory. Mrs Tuomey’s 11-year-old daughter Milly took her own life in January 2016. Mrs Tuomey last week discovered the Facebook page in her name and saw it was sharing a link to a bogus page on fundraisin­g website YouCaring. She wrote: ‘My name is Fiona Tuomey. That is my daughter’s photograph. I am not fundraisin­g so please do not share or support this page. I have reported it to the website.’

That fundraisin­g page has since been removed. It had originally included a photo of Milly along with the words: ‘My name is Fiona Tuomey, my little girl was depressed and lost her life. We want to raise awareness and campaign on issues surroundin­g suicide and depression.’

Facebook apologised and admitted it could ‘do better’ following claims it had initially refused to take the fake profile down. Earlier this month, Mrs Tuomey shared a link to the YouCaring fundraisin­g page, which had her daughter’s picture. She said this page was ‘a fraud’.

 ??  ?? ‘Messages are not from me’: Margo
‘Messages are not from me’: Margo

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