A borrower has been jailed for three years and nine months after pleading guilty to five counts of frauds by false representation and one count of blackmail.

Aaron Seddon, 26, of South Radford Road, Salford, was found to have used the details of victims he befriended using online dating sites to apply for loans in their name, which he kept for himself.

One of his victims, a 28-year-old woman he met on a dating site in 2011, arranged for a number of payday loans for Seddon totalling approximately £3,000, and when he offered to pay her back he arranged for several payday advance loans to be paid into her account from other unsuspecting victims.

DC Nigel Schofield from GMP’s Fraud Investigation Team said: “The impact that Seddon’s actions have had on the lives of his victims should not be underestimated.

“He befriended and in some cases started relationships with people who he later defrauded, manipulating them and playing emotional games which included telling one victim he had cancer, and telling another that his brother had died in a car crash, neither of which were true.”

In 2012, Seddon told one woman he needed an extra £3,000 for a holiday he was arranging for them but when she refused to pay he sent her threatening text messages.

Seddon was then arrested and during his interview he was asked to spell the word ‘hundred’ which he wrote incorrectly as ‘hundread’; the same spelling as in the threatening messages.

“In one case, his victim had to borrow money from family members that could not afford to give this to pay off her debts, and in another case one woman has been denied a mortgage to buy a house with her new family due to the outstanding loans Seddon took out in her name,” added DC Schofield.

“I hope that all those people Seddon has wronged can now find some solace in the fact he has been put behind bars for what he has done to them.”