FRUSTRATED staff at a popular family destination say they are having a 'nightmare' trying to stop its customers from being targeted by Facebook scammers.

Families are being warned not to fall for the scam by staff at Churchfields, in Droitwich, and to stay vigilant on Facebook.

The warning comes after scammers pretending to be the farm messaged people who had entered its competition.

The issue has been going on for about a year now and the family-run farm thought it had got to the bottom of the issue - until its latest competition saw the scammers return.

Tracie Godden, events manager at Churchfields, said: “It is a nightmare, an absolute nightmare.

“You do things in good faith, hold a competition for people, and then the scammers hit.

“We have had it happen a couple of times before last year so we did our homework and tried a couple of things which seemed to go fine and stopped it for a while.

“So, we thought we could do competitions again but for some reason they have done it again.

“We will just have to do more.”

More than 500 people commented on the farm’s competition Facebook post, asking visitors to name the dinosaur in the photo, as part of its ‘Jurassic Farm’ event currently taking place.

However, at least four families were approached by an account impersonating Churchfields, telling them they had won and to follow a link.

As a sign of goodwill, Churchfields has decided to offer these families complimentary tickets.

“When people get told they’ve won when they haven’t it’s really disappointing for them,” added Tracie.

“We have given tickets to four families because we don’t want people to be upset or let down.”

The competition post was later updated, warning entrants of the scam.

It reads: “PLEASE NOTE - Unfortunately there are SCAM Churchfields accounts, that target our followers saying that you have won our competition.

“THIS IS NOT US! This is the only Churchfields account on Facebook, and you will be contacted directly through our Facebook page if you are our winner.

“Please do not follow any link if you are sent one from a scam page!”

Events manager Tracie says that since posting this announcement last night (Wednesday, August 4) the issue seems to have stopped once again.

She also explained that they have dealt with the matter internally, and not involved police yet.