It has come to our attention that scam emails alleging to be from or associated with UNICEF UK are in circulation. Some of the most recent fraudulent emails ask for hotel and guest house bookings and claim to be reserving accommodation for the private holiday use of UNICEF UK staff. They allege that UNICEF's finance department will settle the bill and then send bogus foreign currency cheques that will not be honoured by your bank. Other examples ask the recipient to assist in siphoning money from UNICEF programmes in return for a percentage of the illegal profits.

These emails are not genuine and UNICEF is in no way connected with them – the people behind them are not employees of UNICEF UK, they are not acting on our behalf and UNICEF UK would never cover the costs of staff holidays in the way claimed by these people, nor employ people who would act in such a way. Unfortunately we are being exploited and so are you.

UNICEF UK would like to urge you to be wary of any suspicious emails (or other communications) claiming to originate from someone connected with UNICEF, especially when they are not from an official UNICEF email account and are asking you to engage in international money transfers.

Please verify the authenticity of any transaction before sending a response and certainly before parting with any money. If you are in any doubt, please contact Helpdesk or +44 (0)870 606 3377 for clarification.

If you have been approached in a similar fashion, please contact your local police department with full details of the correspondence that has been received. They may be able to find out who is involved. If you have been a victim of these types of fraud, the only chance of you being able to recover any loss will be if the police are able to bring the perpetrators to justice.

UNICEF UK