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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.

Click here to report a problem with this page.

 

 

Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "Mr Donald Mac" <mrdonaldmac1@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: mrdonaldmac2002@uku.co.uk
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:27:31 +0100
Subject: CONTACT ME FAST .

15, Rugby Street,
Circular Road, London
CV7 4PG, United Kingdom
mrdonaldmac1@hotmail.com

Dear Friend,
I know that this mail will come to you out of the blue as a total
surprise. Well, I have a business proposal which I know might
interest you. I believe that you would be in a position to assist
me in my bid to transfer the sum of (£18.5M.) Eighteen Million Five
Hundred Thousand British Pounds into a foreign bank account. So
study the following account carefully and reply urgently.

I am Mr Donald Mac , an Auditor of a bank here in London.During the
course of our auditing, I discovered a floating fund in an account
opened in the bank in 1999 and since 2000 nobody has operated on
this account. After a lot of investigation I discovered that the
owner of the bank account died without a beneficiary. The money is
floating and if I do not remit this money out it will be forfeited for
nothing. The owner of the account is
Mr. Magnus Smith, a foreigner. He died since 2000 and the bank
account has no other beneficiary. My investigation proved to me
that nobody knows about this account or anything concerning it. So
I want to grab this opportunity, as it is no harm to nobody.

I am here soliciting for your assistance as a foreigner because the
money cannot be approved to anybody here. But It can be approved
to a foreigner with valid international passport or drivers license
and foreign bank account because the money at sake is in British
Pound sterling and the former owner of the account is a foreigner.
The management must approve
this payment to you if you have the correct information of this
account, which I will give to you,
upon your positive response and once I am convinced that you are
capable and will meet up with instruction of key bank official who
is deeply involved with me in this project.

With my influence and the position of the bank officials, we can
transfer this money to any
foreigner’s reliable account, which you can provide with assurance
that this money will be intact pending our physical arrival at your
end for sharing. Note that an existing foreign bank account or an
empty account can serve to receive this money. The banks official
will destroy all documents of the transaction immediately this
money is into your nominated bank
account.

At the conclusion of this business, you will be given 20% of the
total amount, 75% will be for the bank official and I, while 5%
will be for expenses both parties might have incurred during the
course of this transaction.

May I stop here. Reply urgently so that I will inform you the next
step to take. Send also your private phone and fax number including
the full details of the bank account to used for the deposit.
Best regards.

Mr. Donald Mac .

_________________________________________________________________
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