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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.Thomas Donnelly" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <dmr.thomas@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2013 11:52:25 -1200
Subject: REQUEST 194.145.208.89

Alliance & Leicester Bank, (Bill and exchange Department).
Address: 2 Triton Square, Regent's Place,
London NW1 3AN, United Kingdom,
Telephone: +44-7045732920 /   +447011129876
Fax: +44-705364353
 
 
Dear Friend.
 
Greetings to you and your family, I am the manager of bill and exchange in THE BANK, I have a business of $23.1 Million United State Dollars to be transfer to your account for investment in your country, if you are ready to assist me get back to me, I will give you full details on how the fund will be transfer to you.
 
Be rest assured that everything will be handled confidentially because, this is a great opportunity we cannot afford to miss, as it will make our family profit a lot.
 
It has been 6 years ago, that most of the greedy African Politicians used our bank to launder money overseas through the help of their Political advisers.
 
Most of the funds which they transferred out of the shores of Africa were gold and oil money that was supposed to have been used to develop the continent.
 
The Political advisers always inflated the amounts before transfer to foreign accounts so I also used the opportunity to divert part of the fund worth USD$23.1 MIL. Because there is no official trace of how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such transfers of fund at that particle time were closed after transfer.
 
I am the account officer to most of the politicians and when I discovered that they were using me to succeed in their greedy act, I also cleaned some of their banking records from the Bank files and no one cared to ask me for the money was too much for them to control, as I am sending this message to you, I was able the ($23.1Million)which is in an escrow transit account belonging to no one in the bank, and now my bank is very anxious to know the real beneficiary of the funds as they have made a lot of profits from the fund.
 
It has been more than six years ago and most of the politicians are no longer in power again and they don?t use our bank to transfer funds overseas anymore since their tenure had expired.
 
The fund has been lying in the bank as unclaimed fund and I will soon retire from the bank immediately the fund is transfer into your designated account oversea.
 
Immediately the fund has been successfully transfer into your account I will come to your country for the sharing of the percentage, the fund will be shared 50% for me and 47% for you, and the other 3% goes to any expenses we might incurred during the transfer process.
 
Please know that there is no one that is going to question you about the fund if you will comply with me and follow my instruction which will help us a lot to achieve this goal for everything is well secured.
 
Please indicate your interest in this transaction by replying back and if you are not interested do not waste your time to reply kindly delete my message from your box.
 
Waiting to hear from you soon.
 
Yours Faithfully,
 
Mr. Thomas Donnelly

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