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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

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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.

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: "bernard ibe" <benibe@unlimitedmailworld.net>
Reply-To: benibe60@myway.com
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 12:33:17 +0100
Subject: From Bernard Ibe

Dear friend,

Top of the day to you!

My name is Mr. Bernard Ibe; in charge of Bills and Foreign Exchange
Remittance Department LEAD BANK PLC formerly 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 foreign customer (Neuweiler, Adrienne)
who was a petroleum/gas consultant/contactor with the Nigeria National
Petroleum corporation who happens to be deceased during a business trip. He
died on board the Swissair Flight 111, which crashed into the Atlantic off
Nova Scotia in September 2nd 1998. The plane crash was in the news. See
links below for more detail information:

<http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/WORLD/9809/swissair.victims.list/>

<http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9809/08/swissair.02/>

<http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9809/05/swissair.transcripts/>

Since we got information about his death we have been expecting his next of
kin to come over and claim this money. Unfortunately, neither the family nor
the relation has appeared to claim this money or know that he has and
account with us. 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 eight (8) years, it
would be transferred into the 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 don?t want this money to go back into
the bank treasury as the unclaimed funds.

We have agreed that our ratio of sharing will be as stated thus; 20% for you
as foreign partner, 75% for us the officials in my department and 5% for the
settlement of all local and foreign expenses including taxes incurred by
both parties during the course of this business.

To commence this transaction, we require you to immediately indicate your
interest by a return e-mail and enclose your:

1. Your Contact address:

2. Contact Telephone & fax Numbers to enable us file letters of claim to the
appropriate departments for necessary approvals before the transfer can be
made. Note also, that this transaction must be kept STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
because of its nature.

I look forward to your urgent response.

Best Regards.

Mr. Bernard Ibe.

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam