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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: "James Coker" <jamescoker17@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: jamescoker15@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 05:04:12 -0600
Subject: Re: Response needed

ATTN:Sir,
My name is Mr.James Coker, the manager, credit and foreign bills of
Ecobank Plc. I am writing in respect of a foreign customer of my bank with account number 14-255-2004/utb/t who perished in a plane crash [Korean Air Flight 801] with the whole passengers aboard on August 6, 1997.
Since the demise of this our customer, I personally has watched with
keen interest to see the next of kin but all has proved abortive as no
one has come to claim his funds of usd.20.5 m, [twenty million five
hundred thousand united states dollars] which has been with my branch for a very long time. 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 to be the next of kin. And the banking ethics here does not allow such money to stay more than Ten years, because money will be recalled to the bank treasury as unclaimed after this period. In view of this I got your contact through a trade journal after realizing that your name and country is similar to the deceased. I will give you 25% of the
total.
Upon the receipt of your response, I will send you by fax or e-mail the
application, bank's fax number 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 five banking days, after you apply to the bank as a relation to the deceased.
When you receive this letter. Kindly send me an e-mail signifying your
decision including your private Tel/Fax numbers for quick communicationand send email  to jamescoker@breakthru.com
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
James Coker
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