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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: "don wilson" <donwilson01@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 02:11:40 +0000
Subject: FROM MR DON WILSON.

FROM MR DON WILSON.
CITIZENS INTERNATIONAL BANK .
LAGOS NIGERIA
Dear friend,
I am Mr DON WILSON, CITIZENS INTERNATIONAL BANK LAGOS.NIGERIA. I am the
Operations Officer, BILL AND EXCHANGE of THE FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT
OF CITIZENS INTERNATIONAL BANK LTD.,LAGOS.NIGERIA.
I am writing to you, following the impressive information about your profile
through the Website,and I believe in your capability and reliability to
champion this opportunity. In my department, we discovered an abandoned sum
of 18 million US dollars (eighteen million US dollars) in an account that
belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along with his entire
family in September,1997 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 can not release it unless
some body applies for it as next of Kin or relative to the deceased as
indicated in our banking and financial policies but unfortunately we learnt
that his supposed next of kin or relation died with him in the accident
leaving nobody behind to claim the money.
It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other officials in my
department now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the
money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and
subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we dont want this
money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed bills.
The Banking law and guide line here stipulates that if such money remained
unclaimed after five years, the money will be transferred into the Bank
treasury as unclaimed fund.
The request for a foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by
the fact that the customer was a foreigner and an indigene cannot stand as
next of kin to the deceased family. We agreed that 40% of this money will be
for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign
account, 5% will be set aside for expenses incurred during this transaction
and 55 % would be for me and my colleagues.
Thereafter,I and my colleagues will visit your country for disbursement
according to the percentages indicated.Therefore, to enhance the immediate
transfer of thisfund to you as arranged,you must apply first to the Bank as
relation or next of kin of the deceased indicating your private, telephone
and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where the
money will be remitted.
Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by faxor e-mail the text of
the application.I will not fail to bring to your notice that this
transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear
as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer. my private
e-mail avid_pet6@myway.com as soon as you receive this letter.
I decided to contact you as you have products of interest in your part of
the world where we can invest our own percentage to avoid peoples
awarenessas we are civil servants.
Note that we can conclude this operation within ten banking days.Please keep
this very confidential for obvious security reasons. Contact me for more
information, all confirmable before you apply if you want.
Trusting to hear from you shortly for a detailed information which are
confirmable before you can makeup your mind to apply.If however,you are not
interested,do let me know by returm maill too as I will not contact anybody
else until I hear from you.please reply this proposal through mailbox .
May God be with you.
Yours faithfully
MR DON WILSON


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