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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: "johnpaul johnpaul" <mijohnpaul@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: mijohnpaul@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 12:51:44 -0600
Subject: Happy new year with a good news

Dear Friend,

With due regard and respect I wish to write to you this honest mail of an
assistance needed from you. Firstly i will like to introduce myself to you,
I am Barrister John Paul personal attorney to Mr. Engineer Bill Eric
who later became a politician after he resigned from one of the oil company
Chevron here in Nigeria.

I knew that this letter will be a surprised one to you due to we have not
met before or exchange any mail with you. I am writing to you this mail
seeking from you an urgent assistance, to assist the family of my client
pull some amount of money valued $6.5m that belong to my late client before
he was assassinated by his political opponent in the year 2003. This money
was deposited in one of the bank here in Nigeria as a fixed deposit with the
name of his first son Patrick Eric, due to my client was still in the
service then as a civil servant, he cannot operate on a foreign account.

After the death of my late client the Federal Government have probed his
family with the EFCC and seized some of his properties both here and abroad,
also some of the money he deposited in the other banks. As a lawyer to his
family i sued the Government concerning the seizing of his access but the
the case was stroke off and up till now the EFCC is still investigating
where my client deposited money and then seize it.

At this point i needed a foreigner that can assist the family of my client
so that the family can transfer out the fixed deposit my client deposited
for the future of his upcoming children. I got information from the bank
manager who is a very close family friend to the family of my late client
that the EFCC is tracing the bank to seize the fix deposit of my client,
that i should look for foreigner assistance and transfer the money out into
the person’s account for the safety of the money. I am hereby contacting
you to assist the family of my late client retain this money into your
account.

For the assistance you are going to render to the family of my late client
to see that this money is transfer outside this country successfully, the
family promised to give you 20% of the total money and the rest of the
money will be invested into any business that you will advise them when they
will come over to your country.

Please if you are interested to offer the family of my late client this
great assistance, kindly contact me and i will direct you on the next step
to take. Note that all the arrangements on how to transfer this money out
have been mapped out with the bank manager and there is no hitch during the
process of the transfer.

Thanks and will be expecting your urgent respond in respect of
thistransaction through my secured email:

Regards,

Barrister John Paul.


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