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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

• About the 419 (Advance Fee) scam
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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.

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:

• The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
  • "fiduciary agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
  • "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
• This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
  
  1. They don't notify winners by email.
  2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
  3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
  4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
  5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
  6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
  7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
• This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
  • claims_deptt@yahoo.com

Fraud email example:

From: "lottery board" <notificationdepartment54@msn.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 11:09:17 +0000
Subject: END OF YEAR LOTTERY PROMO!!!

Online English/Irish roulette
P O Box 657
London, United Kingdom
(Customer Services)

ONLINE WEB NOTIFICATION OF LOTTO WINNINGS:

We happily announce to you the draws of Online English/Irish roulette
Lottery, an Online International Sweepstakes Program
held on Monday 19th December, 2005. Your email address
attached to ticket/serial number IE6098-05, with
serial number IE535-29 drew the lucky numbers:
1-15-24-37-42-50 (bonus no. 33), With Ref. Number:IES/376O05/77, Batch
Number: 05/507/IES360 and subsequently won the lottery in the 1st
category.

You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of £880,000.00
(Eight hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling) in cash credited to
file
ISPR/7563409218/05. This is from a total cash prize of £8,680,770.00
shared amongst the first nine (9) lucky Winners in this category.

All participants for the online version were selected randomly from
World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from
over
154,000 Unions,Associations and Corporate Bodies listed online.

In view of this, your £880,000.00 (Eight hundred and eighty thousand
pounds sterling) would be released to you by any of our payment
offices.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information
confidential till your claim is processed and your money remitted to
you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize. This is part
of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted
abuse of this program. Deductions from WINNING SUM are not allowed
until
WINNING SUM has been handed over to the winner. Please be warned.

To file for your claim, please contact our fiduciary agent:

Online English/Irish roulette
P O Box 657
London, United Kingdom
(Customer Services)
Email: claims_deptt@yahoo.com

All prize money must be claimed in ten working days.
After this date, all funds will be returned as
unclaimed.

NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary delays and
complications, please always remember to quote your reference and batch
numbers in every correspondence with your claims agent. Furthermore,
should there be any change of your address, do inform your claims
agent as soon as possible.

Please include your private telephone and fax numbers while replying.

Congratulations once again from our team of staff and thank you for
being part of our promotional program.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Helen Woods
Lottery Coordinator

----------------------------------------------------------

Note: Anybody under the age of 17 is AUTOMATICALY DISQUALIFIED and Any
BREACH of CONFIDENTIALITY on the part of the WINNERS will result to
disqualification.

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam