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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: "Mariano Gacia" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <marianogarcia@consultant.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2012 06:27:24 -0400
Subject: REPLY

BANCO SABADELL ATLANTICO
Avenida Gran Via 06
28000 Madrid -Spain.
07-06-2012.

Dear Sir/Ma,

I Mariano Garcia, I am the member of board of director also act as manager bills and exchange at the foreign remittance department of BANCO SABADELL ATLANTICO here in Madrid , Spain . I have a business proposal which I believe that it will be a very Good opportunity for both of us. So I decided to contact you on this business opportunity in our bank. The business is this, I discovered an abandoned sum of USD $10,000,000.00 million (TEN MILLION, UNITED STATE DOLLARS) in our safety deposit vault that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in a car accident on the Barcelona Highway Spain in December 2010. A prominent customer of our bank happens to share the same FAMILY’S NAME with you.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting any of his next of kin to come over and claim his money because the management would not release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately, I learnt that all his family died alongside with him at the motor accident leaving nobody behind for the claim.

Since you have the same surname with this deceased customer you can easily make this deal with me, I will give you all the secret information of this deposit which will help you to claim this money as the next of kin. it is therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin to the deceased since nobody is coming for it and I don’t want this money to go into the banks treasury as unclaimed funds or declared to the government of Spain, once this is done, the government of Spain will confiscate the funds, which is not good for both of us instead its better for us to do the deal and map out something for charity from the money and share the rest

I agreed that 50 % of this money will be for you as a foreign partner in respect of your acceptance to do this business with me, 10% will go for charity home and while the remaining 40 % would be for me and my family.

Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your account as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as the next of kin of the deceased indicating your interest of claim of your inherited funds, upon receipt of your reply through my above email, I will send to you the email of the application which you will send to the bank. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is a hitch free that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made perfectly.

At this moment you should feel free to contact me through above email as soon as you receive this letter. You should understand that this should be kept very confidential, let it be between me and you. This is the only way we can achieve success. I will level the whole arrangement here in the bank for the transfer to be approved immediately.

I will be waiting to hearing from you.
Best regards

Mariano Garcia
Avenida Gran Via 06
28000 Madrid -Spain

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