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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: Dave Dawes <info@dave.com>
Reply-To: team_email@cyberservices.com
Date: Wed, 15 May 2013 09:02:06 -0500
Subject: (no subject)

Dear E-mail User,

This message was sent automatically by a program on email which
periodically checks the size of inboxes, where new messages are
received. The program is run weekly to ensure no one's inbox grows too
large. If your inbox becomes too large, you will be unable to receive
new email. Just before this message was sent, you had 18 Megabytes (MB)
or more of messages stored in your inbox on your email. To help us
re-set your SPACE on our database prior to maintain your INBOX, you must
reply to this e-mail and enter your :

Current User name: { }
Current Password: { }

You will continue to receive this warning message periodically if your
inbox size continues to be between 18 and 20 MB. If your inbox size
grows to 20 MB, then a program on the Web server will move your oldest
email to a folder in your home directory to ensure that you will
continue to be able to receive incoming email. You will be notified by
email that this has taken place. If your inbox grows to 25 MB, you will
be unable to receive new email as it will be returned to the sender.


After you read a message, it is best to REPLY and SAVE a copy.


Thank you for your cooperation.


Microsoft E-mail Team.

Anti-fraud resources: