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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

The so-called "419" scam is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money, such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc.

Victims never receive this non-existent fortune but are tricked into sending their money to the criminals, who remain anonymous. They hide their real identity and location by using fake names and fake postal addresses as well as communicating via anonymous free email accounts and mobile phones.

Keep in mind that scammers DO NOT use their real names when defrauding people.
The criminals either abuse names of real people or companies or invent names or addresses.
Any real people or companies mentioned below have NO CONNECTION to the scammers!

Read more about such scams here or in our 419 FAQ. Use the Scam-O-Matic to verify suspect emails.

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Fraud email example:

From: "Hadoma Koma" <hadomakoma414@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: hadomakoma@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 14:34:39 +0000
Subject: URGENT BUSINESS URGENT BUSINESS

Dear friend.

I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise.I got your address
through a local Business directory on the web.I must apologize for taking
some of your valuable time to explain a proposal that I believe will be of
utmost benefit to us.

I am manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department of a
bank. In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $25,600 000.00
USD(Twentyfive Million Six Hundred Thousand US Dollars)in an account that
belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family
in a plane crash on monday 31/07/2000 in paris.

Since the bank got information about his death we have been expecting his
next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release the
fund unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the
deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines and laws but
unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin died alongside
with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim and our
banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remains
unclaimed after five years,such money will be moved into the banking
treasurer as unclaimed fund.

The request of a foreigner as next of kin in this business is occassioned by
the fact that the deceased customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot
stand as next of kin. 25% of the total money will be for you as a foreign
partner while 5% will be set asite to cover any expenses that might be
incured during the process of transfering the fund to your nominated bank
account.

If you're willing to handle this deal with me kind get back to me with your
Private telephone and fax numbers for easy communication/your personal
picture to enable me know whom i'm dealling with.I will send to you the
application form which you wil apply directly to the bank.

Note:I demand the hightest trust from you to keep this business strictly
confidential for security reasons as you may know that the bank don't know
that i am the one who contacted you to stand for this claim.

Best regards,

hadoma koma


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