A scam has left a woman more than £700 out of pocket after she tried to sell her MacBook.

Abbie Webster, who lives in Buckshaw Village, listed her device on the online selling platform Gumtree and quickly received a reply from a man looking to buy it.

But on August 11, after the buyer had seemingly made payment, Abbie quickly realised cash had not been stumped up at all.

Instead, the supposed purchaser had used an app to make it appear as if money had been sent and walked away with Abbie's device.

Abbie said: “He asked me if a bank transfer was fine, and I said yes because the night before I had someone bank transfer me and it was fine.  

“He ‘transferred’ me the money and it didn't go in straight away so I questioned him, and he said it could take an hour or so to go in.

“Me being stupid, I believed him and let him walk away with the MacBook and only later I had come to realise that he didn't transfer me the money he used a fake transferring app.”

Abbie, who is originally from Horwich, is warning others against the scam that seems to be a growing trend.

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Abbie has reported the incident to the police. She said: “It’s a scam that's going round at the minute and doing a lot of people out there.

“I was absolutely gutted because £740 is a lot of money for me, especially at the minute with everything that's going on.”

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Living in Bolton, Abbie is keen to prevent the scam from claiming more victims.

She added: “I have lived there all my life, so I want to get his face out and make sure he doesn't do it again.

“I have had someone message me say he has been all over doing this kind of stuff."

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