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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "PAUL PETERSERN" <paul_petersern56@msn.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 09:38:07 +0000
Subject: TRANSACTION

Dear Sir,

Do not be surprised about receiving this utmost confidential offer from
somebody you do not know. It is as a result of the urgency and nature
of the business that made me to contact you in thismanner.
My name is Mr.Paul Petersern, a Ghanaian National & a senior
bank officer with one of the leading banks in Ghana. I am writing
this memo following an immense opportunity in my office that will be
of benefit to us all.

After going through some old files in the record books, we discovered
some large amount of funds of US$ 14.5M (Fourteen Million five Hundred
Thousand United States Dollars) lodge in the account of a foreign business
man. The owner of this account is MR MORRIS THOMPSON, a foreigner from
U.S.A; He was a contractor/consultant to KRUGER MINING (SA)INC a South
Africa Government Own Mining Company.

He died in an air crash along with his family (wifeand only daughter) in
Feb 4th, 2000 in an Alaska Airlines Flight 261 with other passengers on
board. You can confirm this from the website below from publisher by
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/
and this site for profile
http://www.nativefederation.org/history/people/mThompson.html

No other person knows about this account or anything concerning it, the
account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as
well that his company does not know anything about this
private account in Ghana. I am only contacting you as a foreigner
because this money cannot be approved to a local Bank here, but can only be
approved to any foreign account because the money is in US Dollars and
the diseased owner of the account is Mr. Morris Thompson is a foreigner
too.
If we do not remit these funds out urgently it would be forfeited for
nothing to the Government. Our constraint is to be able to source
an honest and trustworthy individual, to whom we can remit these
funds and act as trustee pending our visit.

I can guarantee you, my colleagues and I are in the position to make
this opportunity fruitful, provided you can give us the
assurance and guarantee that our share will be secured and this deal
is 100% risk free, keep it confidential. Visualize this one time opportunity
as
an indirect financial resource; also your area of specialization is
not a hindrance. Kindly contact me by my private email
paul_petersern56@gawab.com
upon your willingness to assisting us.

Yours Faithfully,
Mr.Paul Petersern.

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