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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: "Elvon Dickson" <inter_award_dept@msn.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 23:02:37 +0000
Subject: CATEGORY "Z" WINNER

FROM THE DESK OF THE DIRECTOR,UK INTERNATIONAL PRIZE AWARD DEPT

Attn Lucky Winner,

WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "Z" WINNER ONLY

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the last final annual draw of
our Lottery International Programs. The online cyber lotto draws was
conducted from an exclusive list of 25,000,000 e-mail addresses of
individual and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random
computer search from the internet. No tickets were sold.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

After this automated computer ballot, your e-mail address emerged as a
winner in the category "Z" with the following numbers attached Ref Number:SS
9590 ES 9414,Batch Number: 573881545-NL/2005 and Ticket Number: PP
3502/8707-01 You are therefore to receive a cash prize of 3,500,000.00
Pounds. (Three Million Five Hundred Thousand Pounds) from the total payout

CONGRATULATIONS!!!. Your prize award has been insured with your e-mail
address and will be transferred to you upon meeting our requirements,
statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report.To
file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to
contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category "Z" winners
with the information below:

*************************************
Mr. JARETTE McDOUGLAS,
DIAMOND ATLANTIC LC,
UNITED KINGDOM,
E-mail:claim_director@india.com
Phone: +447031947096
*************************************
You are advice to provide him with the following information:

Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:

NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 21 days, thereafter
unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake. Remember to quote your
reference information in all correspondence.

You are to keep all lotto information confidential, especially your
reference and ticket numbers. (This is important as a case of double claims
will not be entertained).Members of the affiliate agencies are automatically
not allowed to participate in this program.

Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as
soon as possible.

Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being
part of our promotional program.

Yours Faithfully,
Elvon Dickson.
Lottery Coordinator.


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