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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. David Howell" <dhowell@standardcharteredbank.com>
Reply-To: dhowell1930@videobank.it
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:44:00 +0100
Subject: DO NOT IGNORE THIS INFORMATION...



Attention:

I know by the time you are through reading this mail you will understand the
actual reason why I sent it to you, however, it will certainly usher you into
knowing the actual truth about your unpaid fund. Respectfully, I am Mr. David
Howell, a citizen of Seychelles and a computer analyst and head of information
services with Standard Chartered Bank. I am 42 years old, just started
work with
the above bank. This piece of information is intended to inform and
educate you
on the discovery of a fund transfer file in your name and also the
circumstances
that have so far prevented it from being transferred to you. The supposed
payment file in your name was clearly marked X and your fund release hard disk
painted in red.

I took my time to study the measures adopted towards the transfer and
found out
that you have really attempted to receive your fund but so far, it has
not been
release to you. The most annoying thing was that some staffs and directors of
this bank choose to exploit some money from you in the name of paying taxes,
transfer costs etc to affect the release of your fund when actually; they
refuse to tell you the actual truth, procedure and process of Inheritance and
Contract payment terms. After my findings, I resolved that I do not intend to
work here all the days of my life and in discovering this constraint,
I decided
to contact and inform you that I can help to facilitate the speedy release of
this fund to you if you can certify me of my security and can always maintain
absolute confidentiality during and after the transfer of the fund to your
account. If anything goes wrong, the bubble will burst.

The only thing I will need to release this fund to you is a special hard disk;
we call it (PF-HD220 Tbyte). I will buy two of it, recopy your transfer
information, destroy the previous one, and punch the computer to reflect in
your bank account within 48 banking hours. After this, I will clean up the
tracer and destroy your file but you must assure me of your absolute
confidentiality of this deal before I can go any further.

You should reconfirm your current information's as follows:

1. Your Full Names:
2. Current Contact Address:
3. Current Mobile Number:
4. Active Bank Account Details.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Mr. David Howell.

Anti-fraud resources: