Published Monday, 24 December 2012
Thousands of fans were duped into visiting a page on Facebook.com which was set up in the Irish pop star's name and encouraged devotees to 'like' the page to raise money for sick kids.
A message posed on the page claimed a $100,000 donation would be made to a children's hospital if it reached "100,000 likes".
However, a representative for One Direction is adamant the page is fake and has promised to contact Facebook.com bosses to get it taken down.
The rep said: "Yes, I'm afraid this is not Niall unfortunately. We will have Facebook shut this down."