Marks and Spencer said yesterday that emails originating from an individual calling himself Andy Curran or Diana Maclean on behalf of a company named as Persimmon Homes, had no connection with Marks and Spencer locally or in the UK.

The email that has been circulated with the subject “Marks and Spencer vouchers” is promising to send Marks and Spencer vouchers to individuals who forward the email. The email is a hoax, the company said. The only probable outcome will be that individuals who forwarded the email will now discover that they have unwittingly passed on their email address onto a spam directory and will receive a lot more unwanted emails as a result.