A craft business owner has warned others to be wary of a scam seeking booking payments for craft fairs that don't exist.
The scam has targeted crafters across Northern Ireland, seeking £75 for booking a stall at an event, on the dates May 27-29.
Norah-Anne Bell, who owns Nifty Gifts, said that the convincing nature of the scam saw her pay £50 for what she thought was two days at a craft fair in the Titanic Exhibition Centre – which was in no way linked to the fake offer.
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Norah-Anne only recently started her business and had only taken part in one craft fair to date.
"If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is," she told Belfast Live.
"But because it was that crafting site which is a good site, I thought this was legitimate."
Norah-Anne said she was then sent a standard booking form and a PayPal link to send the money to, a link which since seems to have either been blocked by PayPal or abandoned by the scammer.
"These scams are getting more and more convincing," Norah-Anne added.
"You just feel gutted when you fall for it though."
Norah-Anne has accepted she will likely not get her money back but she hopes by talking to Belfast Live that she can help spread the word about the scam.
"It's sad because we live in a world with lovely people in it, but sadly there are these sorts of people too, targeting people who are just trying to work hard."
Becky McNabb, who runs Scentsational by Becks from Seaforde, said she had had a similar experience, where she filled out the form and was asked for money up front.
Having only attended one craft fair and booked for another, nothing about that request seemed out of the ordinary, as it had been the practice before.
"Lots of people have got burned and now it's everywhere," she said.
"I'm thinking why did I start this, having spent loads of money getting the equipment and everything.
"I'm not going to let it deter me, but I did wake this morning thinking I was just going to sell everything I'd made and it wasn't worth it.
"But it's nice going to craft fairs and meeting people and that's the nice side of it."
The scam targeted locations across Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Belfast Live has seen evidence of the scammers mentioning Portadown, Craigavon, Ballymena, Lisburn, Newtownards, Castlederg and other locations.
Shirley Houghton, who owns Vintage and Victorian, said the scam was very convincing, but that there had been a few "red flags".
"I looked at the profile of the person and they had only just set it up on Facebook," Shirley told Belfast Live.
"I tried to do a Google reverse search on their picture to see if it was a picture of somebody else, but it didn't return anything.
"They messaged and said it would be £25 per day or if you booked three days it would be £60 and they would provide a table, two chairs and a meal for vendors which is unusual and quite attractive."
Shirley said when she asked further questions, she was sent a standard application form and then she as asked about payment.
"The only reason I didn't send payment was that I was at an airport and I didn't want to get cut off in the middle of it," she added.
"When I said to them that I would do it later on, they tried to put the pressure on and said they had only one table left.
"But by the time I had come off my flight, I had actually got a text saying it was a scam, that the link for payment was saying it was PayPal, but it was actually just a link to donate to a foreign name."
Shirley said the tight-knit nature of the crafting community in Northern Ireland had ensured an alert was able to be spread quickly.
The scam seems to have been posted to a crafting group in Northern Ireland initially, but was also posted to other craft groups in the rest of the UK.
The post had comments switched off which made it harder for people to alert others to the fact that it was a scam.
One person told Belfast Live that the scammer would message to see what the business owner's locale was and then send them a location near them where the supposed event would be happening.
At one stage the scammers mistook Bangor in Northern Ireland for Bangor in Wales which alerted someone to the illegitimate nature of the scheme.
All the targets of the scam were speaking with profiles with the name "Kemsy" or "Kemsy Jay" on Facebook.
They were asked to donate to a PayPal account under a name which since seems to have been blocked by PayPal.
The PSNI has asked anyone who may have been a victim of the scam to contact them on 101.
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