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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: Paddy Vincent <bernadine.toya11@yahoo.com.ph>
Reply-To: Paddy Vincent <patvinc@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2015 15:36:41 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Dearly beloved,


 Dearly beloved,

It is my pleasure to share this testimony with you, my name is Dr Paddy Vincent from Abidjan in Cote D'Ivoire, a woman was admitted in a hospital where I work on the 14th of December 2014, she came with a taxi driver who droped her and zoomed off though the woman was half dead and when she was discovered she was rushed to my ward and I started the treatment formalities until she was able to explain more of her health condition, we discovered she had Cervical Cancer that have stayed long inside of her without treatment then her condition was so bad.

After six days of treatment her health was not responding and she confinded in me that she was childless and a widow from Ghana, she disclosed that she inheritted a fix deposit account in a bank here in Cote D'Ivoire containing the sum of $15 million USD which her late husband planned to use in buying a house in the States where we will stay when he is retired from his job. She sensed that she was not going to survive the illness and asked me to inherit that fund for the purpose of investing it on the motherless babies home centers all over the country, she wrote her will and gave to me with an authorization letter which I will use to present to the bank and unfortunately after two days of writing her will she died. I single handedly did her burial and yesterday I went to the bank to verify the authenticity of the account and other information which I discovered that everything the late woman said was correct, the only problem there is that the husband instructed that the next of kin being his wife or any body that will be presented by the wife should not come from Ghana or Cote D'Ivoire.

Following the depositor's instruction I want to partner with you as a foreigner to introduce you to the bank for them to transfer the fund to your account then we join hands together to invest at least 40% of the funds according to my late patient's advice. Once I receive your positive response I will forward the full contact details of the bank for you to contact them.

Regards,

Dr Paddy Vincent.

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