A YORK grandmother has told of her shock after receiving threatening letters from a "psychic" who told her she would be harmed by someone close to her - unless she sent a cheque for £15.

Angela Schofield, 49, from the Rawcliffe Drive area of Clifton, said she was so outraged by the mass-produced letter that she contacted Trading Standards and York Police because she feared that more vulnerable people, perhaps living on their own, would take the threat seriously and hand over the cash.

Mrs Schofield said: "It did unsettle me. I knew it was a load of rubbish."

"I knew it was just a mass-produced letter designed to get money out of people.

"But it was still playing on my mind that someone wanted to hurt me.

"I'm lucky, I've got a family around me, but I can see how somebody on their own could be taken in by it."

Mrs Schofield said that over the past few months she had been inundated with letters from 'psychics' asking for money and after having "a giggle" she threw each letter in the bin.

However, the latest offering, sent by "psychic Anna Pfeiffer", and giving a post office box address in Switzerland, told Mrs Schofield that someone close to her was trying to do her harm, and would succeed unless she sent Miss Pfeiffer £15.

It said: "If I don't intervene on our behalf very soon, the person who is trying to do you harm may very well succeed before 15 days are up.

"I feel it clearly - because of jealousy, that person is planning to do something terrible to you, something extremely nasty...."

Mrs Schofield said: "It did unsettle me because I was expecting it to be like the others, but it was creepy.

"They said that someone close to me, whom I would not suspect, wanted to hurt me and if I sent the psychic £15 they would intervene on my behalf.

"It's not a great sum of money, but it's enough for them to make a killing, and it's a small enough amount for someone on their own to think that for the sake of £15 they will be safe."

PC Hamish Halloway, of York Police, said: "We want people to be aware of these letters and we urge them not to take these threats seriously, and certainly not to send money to these people."

City of York Council's head of trading standards, Colin Rumford, said: "It never fails to surprise me how much innovation people come up with to try and upset people. This is just a con."

Fiona Hyde, who runs Odds Bodkins, a "mind-body-spirit shop" in Bootham Tower, said no genuine psychic would operate in this way.

Updated: 09:23 Saturday, December 18, 2004