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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: "Stephen Mensah" <stephenprivate2@o2.pl> (may be fake)
Reply-To: stephenprivate@e-mail.cz
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 12:57:04 +0000
Subject: Reply

Attn:Friend,

My name is Stephen Mensah, I am the regional manager of the International
Commercial Bank Tema Accra Ghana I got your information during my search
through the Internet. I am 44years of age and married with 3lovely kids.

It may interest you to hear that I am a man of PEACE and don't want
problem, I only hope we can assist each other. If you don't want
thisbusinessoffer kindly forget it, as I will not contact you again.

I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit both of us, as
the regional manager of the International Commercial Bank it is my duty to
send in a financial report to my head office in the capital city Accra at
the end of each year. On the course of the last year 2004 end of year
report, I discovered that my branch in which I am the manager made Three
million five hundred thousand dollars [3,500.000.00] which my head office
are not aware of and will never be aware of. I have since place this fund
on what we call SUSPENSE ACCOUNT without any beneficiary.

As an officer of the bank I can not be directly connected to this money,so
this informed my contacting you for us to work so that you can assist
receive this money into you bank account for us to SHARE.

While you will have 30% of the total fund. Note there are practically no
risk involved, it will be bank to bank transfer, all I need from you is to
stand claim as the original depositor of this fund who made the deposit
with our branch so that my Head office can order the transfer to your
designated bank account. If you accept this offer to work with me, I will
appreciate it very much. As soon as I receive your response I will details
you on how we can achieve it successfully.

Best regards,
Mr Stephen Mensah
+233243647733







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