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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: stephen Cohen <stephen_cohen42@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2014 22:21:59 +0100
Subject: Dear Friend, Can We Work Together?.,


>From Stephen Cohen Associates,
No 33 Howell Crescent Accra Ghana.
Email: stephen_cohen44@yahoo.com
Phone: Phone +233 706 532 359.
Good Day,
My
name is Stephen Cohen, an attorney. I am/was the personal attorney to
Late Mr. Pitt , who was a Citizen of your country. On the 27th of
January 2010, my client, his wife and their only son died following the
bomb blast that occurred in Ghana on that date.Since then I have been
making several attempts to locate any of my client's relatives but all
my efforts have been unsuccessful.

As a result of this I decided
to track his last name over the Internet hoping to locate any member of
his family or someone who could fit in. This led to my contacting you,
since you have the same last name with my client.I have contacted you to
assist in repatriating the money and property left behind before they
are confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Security Company here
where he had a cash deposit of US$7.500M. The Security Company has now
issued me a final notice of intent to provide his next of kin or have
the deposit confiscated and handed over to the government having
exceeded the agreed period of deposit.

Since I have been unsuccessful
in locating any one who is related to him all these while, i then
decided to contact you to seek your consent to present you as the next
of kin of the deceased so that both of us can retrieve the money from
the Security Company and subsequently share it. It may interest you
to note that I have the necessary legal documents that will be used to
backup the claim. I expect you may wonder how he made all this money.
Well, he was dealing in Diamonds which he was sourcing from Sierra Leone
and neighboring Liberia during the period both countries were at war. I
can explain more of the details if you want me to.

Please, you
will have to get back to me as soon as possible if you might be
interested so that we can discuss further. If you can give me a
telephone number to reach you, it will be faster.

Best regards.

Mr Stephen Cohen.

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