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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: "Walter Jones" <lottery_prize2@msn.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 02:25:34 +0000
Subject: Your Award Winning Prize

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

Attn Lucky Winner,

WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "A" 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 "A" with the following numbers attached Ref Number:
PW 9590 ES 9414,Batch Number: 573881545-NL/2005 and Ticket Number: PP 3502
/8707-01

You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $1,500,000.00. (One Million
Five Hundred Thousand
United States Dollars) 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 "A" winners with the information
below:
*************************************
Name: Bona Hensen
Phone: +316 2667 2428
Email: pclaim-agent@consultant.com
*************************************
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 15 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,
Walter Jones.
Lottery Coordinator.



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