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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: "Mrs. Afrina Amson" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <afrina_salim@hotmail.my>
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 06:54:31 +0800
Subject: Re: Dearest: in the God,

Dearest: in the God,
Pls reply, if you care & Wish,
May the peace of the Lord be upon you (respond to me today?)
I am Mrs. Afrina Amson from United Kingdon I am 58 years old, I am suffering from a long time cancer of the breast, from all indication my conditions is really deteriorating and it is quite obvious that I can't work or do any stressful thing, according to my doctors they have advised me that I may not live for the next two months, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage. I was brought up from a motherless babies home was married to my late husband for twenty years without a child.
My Husband (Robert Salim Amson) died in a fatal motor accident before his death we were true Christians. Since his death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and deposited all the sum of $5.6 Million dollars with a With a Security Company.
Presently, this money is still with the Security Company and the management just wrote me as the true owner to come forward to receive the money for keeping it so long with attract a demurrage fees as the security fees paid by me has expired or rather issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf since I
cannot come over because of my illness or they get it confisticated.
So instead of getting it confiscated I rather have someone whom I can trust to  receive the funds and utilize it according to my Wishes. And the best part of it is, the Security Company told me in the letter that they can have the funds released to my approved person that was authorized by me or transferred to his bank account and if I issue authorizations letter to them to transferred to his or her bank account or pick up in person.
Presently, I am using my laptop in the hospital where I have been undergoing treatment for my sickness. I have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that I have only more 2 months to live. It is  my last wish to see atleaset 60% of this money is invested/donated to any  organization/business of your choice and distributed each year among the charity organization, e.g. the poor homes, the motherless babies home where I came from, the deaf homes, and churches etc.
All I seek for is a God fearing person like you ,who will carry out my last  wishes and before I emailed you today I prayed and the holy spirit gave me the  confidence to send you this email. I took this decision, before I rest in peace  because my time will soon be up.
As soon as I receive your reply I will give you the contact of the Security Company or my attorney.
Please send me the below information.
NAME:
ADDRESS:
AGE:
OCCUPATION:
TELEPHONE NO:
Country:
All I need from you is a confidential assurance that the funds when received by you will be used for the said purpose, Nowadays there are so much scams going on in the internet and it is difficult to trust but I don’t know why the Holy spirit still approved me to email you about this out of few email addresses I have from the internet, yours was the only one that my mind convinced to contact.
Waiting for your reply.
Yours in Christ,
Mrs. Afrina Amson
 

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