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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: "Mary" <mrs.rosemary24@att.net>
Reply-To: <mrsrosemary15@rocketmail.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:02:33 -0000
Subject: I NEED YOUR REPLY

 
 
Dear Friend,
 
I apologize if the contents in this mail are contrary to your moral ethics, which I feel may be of great disturbance to your personal life, but please treat with absolute secrecy and personal and I pray that this email reaches you in the best of health.
 
I pray God that this message reaches you in wonderful spirit as I am making this contact with you based on trust and confidence irrespective of the fact that we have not met before and because of the nature of the situation I found myself. I got your contact from web through personal endeavor and decided to contact you. I believe my contacting you is not an ordinary coincidence because God can use any body known or unknown to accomplish great things which he has ordained.
 
I am Rose Mary, I was hospitalize after I had a car accident with my family, I lost my husband and my two daughters who were also on board during the accident. After the accident, I have been battling with some health problems from the major injuries that I sustained in the cause of accident.
 
Recently, my doctor told me that I have some few months to live due the surgery that was conducted.Though what disturbs me is my presence predicament, due to the injuries that I sustained and damaged of my spinal cords during the accident. Having known my condition, I have the Willingness to Donate some fund to charity organization through you for the good work of the lord, and to help the motherless, less privileged and also for the assistance of the widows. Because I am the only surviving person and nobody else that will inherit this money because they are dead. I don't want a situation whereby this deposit will be confiscated and declared unserviceable by the officials of the finance company where it was deposited by my late husband who used to work with shell development company as an engineer before his death.
 
All I want you to do is to assist me safe-keep this fund deposited with a security firm before anything happens to me.
I seek your consent to present you as the Trustee to my late husband's inheritance to enable the security firm release the box to you.
If you are interested in carrying out this task, kindly forward to me your contact details full name and your address also your contact number to enable me submit it to the security company before anything happens to me because I am now too weak and fragile to do things myself because of my present health problems.
 
Yours faithfully,
 
Mrs.Rose Mary

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