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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: "Jude Ato" <judeato@plasa.com> (may be fake)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 20:47:07 +0100
Subject: THIS MIGHT INTEREST YOU

AUDIT AND ACCOUNTS UNIT
ECO BANK OF TOGO
ECO BANK HOUSE,LOME TOGO.


Dear

I am Mr.Jude Ato, a staff of bills and exchange at the foreign remittance Department, of Eco Bank

Of Togo plc. I am writing following the impressive information about you from our chambers of

commerce and industry.
In my department, we discovered an abandoned the sum of (US$ 12.5m) TWELVE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED

THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS only, in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers

who died along with his entire family 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 as a next of kin or relation

to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines.

Unfortunately we learn that his supposed next of kin or relations died along with him at the

crash leaving nobody behind! for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other

officials in the department now decided to make business with you, that is, to release the money

to you as the next of kin or relation to the decease since nobody is fronting for the money and

we do not want this fund to go into disbursement account as unclaimed bill. The banking law and

guidelines here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after two years the money will

be transferred into federal government account as unclaimed fund.

The request of a foreigner as next of kin in this business is occassioned by the fact that the

customer was a foreigner and an indigene can not stand as a next of kin to a foreigner. We agreed

that 30% of this money will be for you as the foreign partner and 10% for expenses incurred

during the cost of remittance. Therefore to enable immediate transfer of the fund to you as

arranged, you should contact me with my private e-mail adress immediately for further briefing.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.Include your phone and fax numbers when repling

Mr.Jude Ato
Best regards.
Foreign Remittance

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam