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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

• About the 419 (Advance Fee) scam
• "Is that email a scam?" - Check it online here!
  
• Frequently asked Questions (419 FAQ)
• Phone numbers used by 419 scammers
  (+225 +229 +234 +27 +31 +32 +34 +44 other)
• Company names mentioned in 419 spam:
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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.

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:

• This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
  
  1. They don't notify winners by email.
  2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
  3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
  4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
  5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
  6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
  7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!

Fraud email example:

From: =?utf-8?q?Won=20Mails?= <anajane92@yahoo.com.co>
Reply-To: winningmails@paris.com
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:27:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: ***CONGRATULATION YOU WON***


¡Tengo nueva dirección de correo!Ahora puedes escribirme a:anajane92@yahoo.com.co



- Attn: Dear Sir/Ma, We just confirmed that you are part of the selected winners for this weekend UK Winning Lottery in which you participated through your personal email account online survey. You won for yourself a sum of 750,000 GBP. This is your reference in which you will use to claim your money: The referance number is: HLF /200-26937BATCH NUMBER: 12/25/0304 SERIAL NUMBER: S/N-12678 WINNING NUMBERS: 12,16,35,40,24 Please do contact us for verification and confirmation of your winning numbers. Thanks Mgt.

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam