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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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Fraud email example:

From: "Frank Ray" <peteer11@yahoo.com> (may be fake)
Reply-To: frankray@mail.bulgaria.com
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:55:06 +0200
Subject: GOOD DAY

ATTN:

Am Mr.Frank Ray , in charge of bills and foreign exchange remittance Department of LEAD MERCHANT BANK PLC. I am writing you this letter to ask for your support and co-operation to carry out this business opportunity in my department.

We discovered an unclaimed sum of $35Million (Thirty five Million Dollars) in an account belonging to one of our customer, who died in a plane crash with the
entire family in year 2001.Since we got information about his death we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money. Unfortunately, neither the family nor the relation has appeared to claim this money.

We cannot release this money unless somebody applies as the next of kin or relation to the deceased. Our banking guidelines indicated that if such money
remained unclaimed for a period of four (4) years, it would be transferred into the MERCHANT BANK Treasury as unclaimed fund. Another officer and I in the department now decided to transfer this money into your account as the next of kin or relation
of the deceased for easy collection since nobody is coming for it and we dont want this money to go back into the bank treasury as the unclaimed debt.

Infact it is my friend that advised me to urgently arrange to transfer out this money through another foreign beneficiary outside the country. We have decided to give you 15% of the total sum. So please, as a matter of urgency send to me your telephone and fax numbers for effective communication. I will do my best to see that we conclude this transaction successfully on time.

Please if you are intrested send me an immediate mail so that I can explain the details to you to understand everything about this business."

write to frankray@mail.bulgaria.com

Waiting for your urgent response.

Best Regards.
Mr.Frank Ray







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