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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.

Click here to report a problem with this page.

 

 

Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "JOHN MIKE" <john.mike1@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: mrjohn_mike@inbox.com
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:31:51 +0000
Subject: ATTN / MY FRIEND

FROM:The Desk of John Mike,
Bill And Exchange Manager,(A.D.B)
(African Development Bank),
Republic of Benin.
Phone: 00229-9586 7952

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL AND PRIVATE



Dear Friend,


Compliments of the day. I deceided to contact you after I received a worthy
information about your reliability and honesty. Hence I confide in you.
I am Mr John Mike,from (African Development Bank),Republic of Benin. During
the course of our auditing we discovered the sum of twelve million five
hundred thousand united states dollars (USD$12.500.000.00) floating in an
account opened in this Bank since 1997 and as from 2001 nobody has operated
on this account again, and after going through some old files in the records
I
discovered that the owner of the account died without a [HEIR]sept11th 2001
by plane crash, hence the money is floating.
After due verification I noticed that no other person knows about this
account except his wife who was also invovled in the crash, and the account
has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that
until his death he was the Director GOLD ARK [SARL] Since our bank,(African
Development Bank)Benin Rep.got information about his death, we have been
expecting his next of kin to come forward and claim his money because we
cannot release it unless somebody
applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in
our banking guidelines and policies but up to date nobody came up to this
bank as his next of kin or relative. 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
elation to the deceased
for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming forth and we
don?twant this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.

On this note, I decided to seek for whom his name shall be used as the next
of kin as no one has come up as his relation. And the country law here does
not allow such money to stay more than Five years, for the money will be
recalled to the government treasury as unclaimed after this period.Upon the
receipt of your response, I will send to you the application form,bank?s
contact and the next step to take. I will not fail to bring to your notice
that this business is hitch free and that you should not entertain any fear
as all modalities for fund transfer can be finalized within fourteen banking
days, after you apply to the bank as a relation to the deceased.
It has been resolved that 20% will be for you while 10% has been maped out
to defray any expences that might be incured during the process of the
ransaction.
Then 70% will be for me which shall be release after the funds must have
been remitted into your bank account.When you receive this letter, kindly
send me an e-mail signifying your decision.Including your private Tel/Fax
numbers for quick communication. I will be very happy if you can treat this
business with the utmost secrecy it demands because of my position in this
bank. For confidentiality reasons,kindly reply to my private Email:
mrjohn_mike@inbox.com
Hoping for a very successful business relationship with you.

Best Regards,
Mr John Mike
Phone: 00229-9586 7952 (direct Line)
Email: mrjohn_mike@inbox.com


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