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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. Blessing Mensah" <mrsblessmensah_0@att.net>
Reply-To: <blessingmensah78@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 09:04:25 -0000
Subject: very very urgent

The Regional Manager,
Standard Chartered Bank of Ghana,
Temale Branch.

Hello dear friend,

My name is Blessing Mensah (Mrs), I am the regional manager of Standard
Chartered Bank of Ghana
Temale Branch. Am writing you this mail for something very important; I am
happily married with four
lovely children. I have been a banker for almost 10 years. I have packaged a
financial transaction that
will benefit you and I, as the regional manager of my branch it is my duty
to send in a financial
report to my head office in the capital city Accra at the end of each
business year.

On the course of the last year 2010 business report, I discovered that my
branch in which I am the
manager made Five million six hundred and twenty thousand united state
dollars ($5,620,000.00)USD.
I have placed this funds on what we call escrow call account, this account
is strictly for
onward transfer, with no beneficiary.

As an officer of this bank I cannot be directly connected to this money in
any way, so my aim of
contacting you is to assist me receive this money in your bank account and
get 40% of the total
funds as commission, while 60 percent comes back to me. I placed you on
40% because I believe this
business now belongs to the both of us, and your efforts and support is
highly going to be involved
as well. Up till date, no one has the knowledge of the $5,620,000.00USD
you are about to receive
in your bank account, and no one will ever know of it.

All you need to do is stand and claim as the original depositor and
beneficiary of the fund in my
branch so that my head office can order the transfer of the fund to your
designated bank account.
There are practically no risks involved, it will be a bank-to-bank
transfer.

From the day you applied, within 6 days the money should have been
transferred and cleared in your
account if all things work out well. Then I will get back my 60% through
any means we find best to
do so.

Please note that all I need from you is your trust and sincerity as to
seeing this through.
am expecting your soonest reply as to enable us start doing something
about this immediately.

Thanks yours faithfully,
Mrs. Blessing Mensah.

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