THE family of a 76-year-old grandmother claim she was driven to an early grave after being bombarded with demanding and threatening letters from fake clairvoyants.

Mulvie Wright, from St Agnes, died last month from a brain haemorrhage which her family say was bought on by the stress of having to pay out to bogus psychics based in Europe, the US and Ireland. In one month alone, last November, she paid over £400.

Her daughter, Louise, discovered that her mother had been writing, and paying money, to 34 bogus "psychics" based in Luxembourg, Switzerland, the US and Ireland on a daily basis.

Jackie Snow, from Cornwall trading standards department, said this was a nasty scam which targeted the vulnerable.

"I would ask people not to respond to these nasty letters that intimidate you into sending them money. They are not personally addressed to you but sent to everybody on their data base in the hope that they will get lucky," she said.

Mrs Wright was depressed after losing her husband and when she received the letters from the clairvoyants she was particularly vulnerable.

She felt that they were addressed to her but the company sends the letter to everybody and every so often will get somebody who is depressed and will respond.

Some companies get people to do rituals and Mrs Wright's calender was full of rituals which she had to do everyday.

Cornwall trading standards department has issued a warning about corresponding with a "clairvoyant-astrologer" who calls herself Samantha, after menacing letters were sent out to people in Cornwall bearing an Austrian address and enclosing a jack of spades playing card. "This letter reveals worrying events concerning your future," began one of the "Samantha" letters sent to Mrs Wright. "It is the jack of spades card which dominated the deck of your destiny - a symbol of treason and disaster that you must absolutely destroy in order to avert the curse!"

Another fake psychic wrote bullying letters claiming that she was missing out on untold fortunes from a lottery win p>The Office of Fair Trading has tried to contact a number of the clairvoyants but none has responded. Most letters come from outside Europe, where the OFT has no enforcement powers. "We've written to our counterparts in Switzerland, where the majority of European-based psychics have return addresses, asking them to shut down the PO boxes used by the psychics and share any intelligence on those responsible for the mailings," said an OFT spokesman.