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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: "markus thambo" <markusthambo02@msn.com>
Reply-To: markthambo02@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 01:41:24 +0000
Subject: I await your response.

Attention: President/Director,

I am the chairman of the contract award committee of
the Gold and Natural resources ministry here in South
Africa, for security reasons, I may not wish to
disclose the most important thing for now until I hear
from you.

After due deliberation with my partner, I decided to
forward to you this business proposal, we want you to
assist us receive the sum of Twenty eight million, six
hundred thousand united state bills ($28.6M) into your
account. This fund resulted from an over-invoiced
contract awarded by us under the budget allocation to
my ministry and the bill was approved for
payment by the concerned ministries. The contract was
executed, commissioned and the contractor was paid his
actual cost of the contract. Now, we are left with the
balance of $28.6M as the over invoiced amount, which
we have deliberately over estimated for our own use.
Please note that the law forbids civil servants to
operate or own foreign accounts hence this contact, we
have agreed to share the money in the following
percentages: 30 for you, 60 for us 10 for tax as may
be required by your government, because we don’t need
anything that will delay this money when it arrive in your
bank account.

Note that this transaction is very much free from all
sorts of risk hence the business was carefully planned
before it was successfully executed and we the
officials involved in the deal have put many years in
service to our ministry. We have been exercising
patience for this privilege for so long not until the
presidential announcement last week, that all foreign
contractors owed be paid forthwith, this will enable
the presidency reconcile our debt ratio with the
outside world and to most of us, this is a lifetime
blessing we cannot afford to miss. Upon indication of
your interest to fully co-operate with us, a payment
application/information form will be sent to you via
email for completion.

your private phone number and email address will
be needed for easy communication to
enable us seek/secure approval of the fund from the
concerned government quarters/ministries within 3-4
banking days.

As soon as we confirm receipt of this money in your
nominated bank account, my partner and I will come
over to your country to arrange for our own share and
possibly invest part of this
money in your country.

Let honesty and trust be our watchword throughout this
transaction. I shall furnish you with some details
about myself. Your prompt reply will be highly
appreciated.

Best regards.

Engr.Markus Thambo.


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