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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: "Cindy Elliot." <cind_123@walla.com> (may be fake)
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 11:05:19 +0100
Subject: (Important)Please Read.

JP Morgan,
London.

Dear Friend,
I am one of the transfer officers of JP Morgan London and
my name is Mrs. Cindy Elliott. Please permit me to make
this plea to you and if interested, do not hesitate to get back
to me via my email immediately for further action.

Last 4 years, a group of men from Africa were able to
move the sum of $32M to our branch in London and since then,
none of them have shown up to lay claims on the said amount.

Several calls have been made to the owners and none was successful
on the numbers given and now I have all the paper work to transfer the
funds via our payment office here in London to your account without any
trace as all documents will be destroyed by me immediately the transfer
is taken place after 5 days of receiving your details.

Please this is very confidential and must not be discussed
with anyone else as I have prepared all my documents to resign once
transfer is made to your account. Also you will assure me that you will
not disappear with the funds hence I make this plea in good faith.

The funds will be shared on 60-40 bases to avoid greed on
both sides.
If you are interested, get back to me and we shall get this done.

Yours Faithfully,
Cindy Elliott.



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