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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: beneth mkhize <benethmkhize2000@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:43:39 +0100 (BST)
Subject: URGENT REPLY



From:BENETHMKHIZE
Email; benethmkhize2000@yahoo.co.uk
Tel: +27-73-232-9734
Johannesburg South Africa

Dear Sir, How are you? Hope all is fine with you. With due respect, trust and humility, I write you this proposal, which I believe, would be of great interest to you. I am Mr.BenethMkhize, the Director of Delivery/Operations Coin Security Company (PTY) LTD here in South Africa.
To be explicit and straight to the point. Some time early 1997, a reputable client of ours deposited a consignment in our company's vault for safekeeping. And since then our client has failed to come forward to claim his consignment, which has accumulated a considerable amount of money in demurrage. Consequently, in our bide to contact this client to redeem the demurrage which his consignment had accumulated we discovered that our client was the German property magnate Andreas Schranner, who died on 25th of July 2000, he, his wife, their daughter and her two Children died in the Air France concord plane crash bound for New York in their plan for a world cruise.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

Since the death of our client Andreas Schranner, none of his benefactors has come forward to claim the consignment with us, which means that none of his relatives or aids had any knowledge of this consignment.

However out of curiosity I decided to secretly open the box that our client deposited in our vault. And to my surprise I discovered that the box that were registered as treasure by our client actually Contained a considerable amount of money in United States Dollars amounting to about US$13.5million (Thirteen million Fivehundred Thousand United States Dollars).

Since this development I have been nursing plans secretly am now soliciting your Noble assistance to assist me in transferring this money out of South Africa to your country for immediate investment with your assistance. I have also decided that you will generously be entitled to 40% of the Total amount while 60% will be for me, which will be invested in your country under your supervision. Upon my receipt of your reply confirming your willingness to go into this transaction with me, I will immediately arrange and transfer all the rights of ownership of this consignment to your name to facilitate your easy clearance and transfer of the complete funds to your country for onwards investment. This transaction is 100% risk free and all the modalities on how the transaction will be carried out have been arranged. Please maintain absolute confidentiality on this matter. If you are willing to go into this profitable transaction with me, you can contact me on my e-mail address,or ph!
one. I
will also need your private phone and fax number for easier communication. Thanks for your anticipated co-operation

Yours faithfully
Mr.Benethmkhize






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