A WORRIED daughter claims bogus companies have brainwashed her elderly mum into handing over more than £30,000 in junk mail competition scams.

Susan Holden, 52, is desperate to stop her 88-year-old mother, who lives in Southend, from sending cheques to companies, based in America, Australia and South America.

Her mother, who does not want to be named, receives up to 100 letters a day at her home near Manners Way.

Many claim she could be a multi-millionaire if she sends off processing fees of anything between £20 and several thousand pounds. Ms Holden's mother said: "I have won money, I've won four different prizes, but I haven't had any cash yet.

"You have to keep sending money to them, for them to send you the prize.

"I know some of them are scams but not all of them."

She moved to Southend a year ago after selling a villa she owned in Spain and since then has got involved with the mail competitions.

She does not remember how she started replying to the letters and sending the cash but says it suddenly snowballed.

"I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing it for other people," she said.

"I want to be able to help my daughter, my two grandchildren and charities."

Daughter, Ms Holden, lives in Yorkshire with her partner Bill Beveridge, 55, but carries boxes of the letters away to burn after every visit.

She has once answered the phone to a man claiming to be a legal adviser to the Supreme Court in Washington DC.

He said there was a court case taking place because her mother had not claimed prize money of $1.4billion and demanded Ms Holden send money to an account in Costa Rica.

She said: "In the past six months she has handed over £30,000 that we know about.

"She's surrounded by these letters and spends all day going through them and answering them.

"I think they are brainwashing her. She really believes she will be a rich woman.

"She has still got an active mind but doesn't realise how vulnerable she has become. It really does worry me."