MONEY has been stolen from kind-hearted businesses by fraudsters posing as a Worcestershire charity.

The RSCPA Worcester and Mid-Worcestershire branch said a social media account has been posing as the organiser of the charity's Vegan Fayre event in order to get money from vendors looking to sell their products.

A spokesperson for the organisation, based in Kempsey, said: "We are heartbroken that someone would try to do such a thing; using an event that we, a small charity, are working so hard to organise in order to raise desperately needed funds, in an attempt to take money out of the pockets of small, independent traders in this way.

"Please be advised that we will never ask for payment of pitch fees via PayPal. All traders will be invoiced and emails will come from the admin@rspcaworcester.org.uk email address.

"We are so sorry for any alarm this may cause to anyone who has booked, or is thinking of booking with us and please rest assured that this fake account and scam attempt has been reported to the relevant authorities."

The charity spokesperson said it hoped people will still book a stall to take part in the event.

They said: "We hope this doesn't deter anyone from booking a pitch with us. So far we have had a lot of interest from some very varied and unique stalls so we're really excited.

"We plan to share a list of confirmed vendors in the coming days and we hope that more will join the final tally.

"We face so many challenges day-to-day in our work, and this really is one more problem that we didn't need, but we're determined not to let the scammers win and with the help of our wonderful supporters, we plan to make our Vegan Fayre a huge success."

READ MORE: Three people charged following suspected thefts in Worcester

The charity said it only contacts traders via their Facebook and Instagram accounts, and the email address for all other correspondence about this event is clairewood@rspca-worcester.org.uk.

The charity is planning to hold the Vegan Fayre on Sunday, August 21.

The event will feature products such as vegan cakes, vegan sushi and vegan scotch eggs.