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

Fraud email example:

From: JANET KONE <info120@walla.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:41:23 +0100
Subject: FROM JANET KONE


Dearest One,

REQUEST FOR GUARDIAN AND ASSISTANCE

Good day and how are you today? I hope fine? After going through your profile, its permit me to inform you of my desire of asking you to be my guardian or foster parent to me and then help me out in what I am about to tell you.

My name is Janet Kone (16). I am only child of Late Mr. & Mrs. John C Kone. My father was a cocoa merchant here in Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote d’Ivoire. He was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outings on a business trip. My mother died after two hours she gave bet to me.

Before the death of my father on Sept 14th 2004 in a private hospital here in Abidjan, he secretly called me by his bed side and told me that he has the sum of eight million United State Dollars USD ($8.000,00) deposited in one of the banks in Europe. He told me that he used my name (Janet Kone) as the next of Kin in depositing the money and he also told me where he kept the entire document.

He then strongly advised me not to seek assistance from his lawyer nor any of his friends or family here but to seek for a foreign partner from a country of my choice (outside our country, Cote d’Ivoire) that will assist me in wise investment of the money. I have since left the money in the bank with the view of my making use of it for investment purposes after my education carrier.

As you are already aware by now, our country is presently on political crises. Rebels have already taken over the whole Northern part of the country and making efforts towards the capture of the commercial center of the country, Abidjan, where I am now.

For this ugly development in this country, I have now decided to contact you quickly and use it for investment purpose like in real estate or hotel investment. Because of this I am honorably seekingyour assistance in the following ways:

(1) To help me as a guardian
(2) To assist me transfer the money into your bank account.
(3) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to enable me further my education and then settle there permanently.

If you accept to stand as my guardian or foster parent to me, I need not discuss on any percentage with you as you have to see the whole money as yours and then assist me invest it. But if you still want a percentage, I am willing to offer you, 20 % of the total money as compensation for your assistance. Pleas tell me if you feel the percentage I offered is not ok by you.

As soon as I receive your concrete assurance to assist me with my proposal, I will provide you with further directives and I will require your full contact address/phone number to enable me give you the bank your contact information and then tell them to transfer the money into your account as I willing to come over to stay with you permanently. The bank will then contact you and directly properly you on the transfer procedures. You shall then be giving me information on when the transfer will be over, however, I am willing to send my pictures to you and I shall also need yours too.

No matter what your decision may turn out to be, please I beg you to keep this highly secret for my safety, as I believe that those that killed my Daddy might still be after me. Please reply me through this my private and confidential email address: janet_kone@walla.com
Thanks and God bless you.

Best regards,
Janet Kone.

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