Recruitment: Nannies alerted to cash scam

Nanny Emma Entwistle contacted Nursery World after receiving an e-mailthat purported to be from a man wanting to offer her a job caring forhis two-year-old son.

Emma had been looking for a job and carried out searches on severalrecruitment websites.

It is believed that fraudsters are searching nanny and au pairrecruitment sites for personal details and contacting prospectivenannies to try to obtain personal cheques from them.

Emma said, 'Straightaway I thought the e-mail wasn't right. There waspoor grammar and it didn't make any sense at all.'

The e-mail was from a man calling himself Steve Howe from Hull who worksfor a 'petroleum company' in Africa.

It said, 'I saw your profile from nanny-world.com and I will be needingyour services to take good care of my son for the next two weeks till Iget back to the United Kingdom. I am offering you 1,000 for theservice and the payment will be sent to you from one of my client inKent as soon as you get back to me with your full mailinginformations ... after the check has cleared, will you be able to sendthe remaining amount to the Travelling agency?'

It also asks for a contact address, phone number and photo giving aYahoo e-mail address.

Emma believes that the fraudster obtained her address when she created aprofile available to the public on a nanny job site.

Nursery World's job site does not publish personal details, e-mailaddresses or photos. Users can register, receive job alerts and applyfor jobs.