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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: "MRS. MIMI MABLE." <ss_hh_757@yahoo.co.uk> (may be fake)
Reply-To: hh_hh_757@myway.com
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 14:51:44 +0300
Subject: FROM..MRS. MIMI MABLE.....

Dear Friend ,

I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance
department
of Bank Of Afrieca.(BOA) I am writing following the impressive
information
about you through one of my friends who runs a consultancy firm in your
country. He assured me of your capability and reliability to champion
this
businees opportunity. In my departmentn we discovered an abandoned sum
of
$ 20 .2m US dollars (million US dollars) . In an account that belongs to
one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in
november
2000 in a plane crash. Since we got information about his death, we
have
been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because
we cannot release it unless somebody applies for as next of kin or
relation
to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but
unfortunately
we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside
with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other officials
in
my department now decided to make this businness proposal to you and
release
the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for
safety
and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we dont
want
this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.
The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money
remained unclamed after four years, the money will be transfered into
the
Bank treasury as unclaime fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin
in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a
foreigner
and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner. We agree
that
30 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to
the
provision of a foreign account,10 %will be set aside for expenses
incured
during the business and 60 %would be for ;me and my colleagues.

There afterI and my colleagues will visit your country for disbursement
accoding to the percentages indicated.Therefore to enable the immediate
trnansfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the
bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank
name,
your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for
easy
and effective communication and location where in the money will be
remitted
.Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you
by fax or email the text of the application. I will not fail to bring
to
your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should no
entertain
any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the
transfer
. You should contact me immediately as soon as you
receive this letter.

Trusting to hear from you immediately. Yours faithfully

MRS. MIMI MABLE.
Bill and exchange manager,
Bank of Afrieca.(BOA)



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