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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: Melinda Bosso <allen.phillip3@gmail.com>
Reply-To: melindabosso@rediffmail.com
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2013 08:46:40 +0000
Subject: Message!!

Dearest,

Treat this message with utmost confidential ok.

As you may know, this is my 6th days in this Hospital bed, and I am
constrained to sit up and write this message to you purposely because
the doctor has announced that I will be undergoing the surgery by next
tomorrow. and ever since this information occurred to me, my mind
never found rest, my heart is still panting even at this moment, i
lost the courage of living again, I cant even afford to speak with
people right now because of fear.

But I believe and pray God to spare my life.

Meanwhile, I want to inform you that my late husband left a contracted
sum of $12.3m USD in a bank here, and as childless couple; we’ve long
planned to use the money to aid the poor and Build Orphanage homes.
But we never succeeded in embracing such project until my husband died
as the payment was delayed.

Now that I am not sure of my life here, and & no existing biological
child to inherit our properties, I want to entrust this project in
your hand because I don’t know if I will ever survive this sickness.I
wouldn’t want to go into many details here because I have not energy
for long emails. But I wished to briefly inform you that due to lack
of Biological son, after my husband died, his relatives came up with
troubles and confiscated all my husband properties and even call me a
witch.

But God knows that am innocent of all the accusations. And now, am
happy they didn’t discover about the fact that my husband handled some
contract with the government of cote d'ivoire which the payment has
been delayed before he died.So after mourning my husband as the custom
permits, I took the paper to the bank but they asked me to waiting for
more weeks, which I waited until Two months ago when the management of
the bank call to inform me that the fund is due to be claimed but I
couldn’t visit them due to my health condition.

Now that you are the lucky person in my contact list, I want you to
reply this message and set me up in hope and I will furnish you the
necessary information you need to claim the money from the bank and
use it to help the needy.

You must give me your solemn promise to handle this project in good
manner and fear of God. You must use 70% of this money to build
orphanage homes and help the poor while 30% goes to your purse for
your Job well-done.


So, I will want you to reply this message to day so that I will give
you the bank information even before the operation takes place because
my heart is still panting and I fear surviving the sickness.

I believe you will not betray this trust because if you use this money
to help the poor on our name, I and my Husband will find peace
wherever our souls maybe.Please pray that the surgery will be a
successful one, and that I could survive this sickness so we can run
this project together.


May the living God bless and keep you


Mrs Melinda Bosso

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