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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

• About the 419 (Advance Fee) scam
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• Company names mentioned in 419 spam:
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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.

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:

• The following fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
  • "international lottery programme"
• The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
  • "dear sir/madam" (a standard Nigerian greeting phrase)
• This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
  
  1. They don't notify winners by email.
  2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
  3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
  4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
  5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
  6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
  7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
• This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
  • charles_agent@sify.com

Fraud email example:

From: "MR.Tony Martins" <australianlotto01@yahoo.com.au>
Reply-To: charles_agent@sify.com
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:57:18 +0000
Subject: Tony martins



AUSTRALIA LOTTO LOTTERY
HEAD OFFICE LONDON.
BRANCH OFFICE AFRICA.
Date: 07/03/2006

Ref: 575061725
Batch: 8056490902/188
Winning no:KB8701/LPRC
CONGRATULATIONS!

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are delighted to inform you of your prize release on the 5th January
2006 from the Australian International Lottery programme. Which is fully
based on an electronic selection of winners using their e-mail
addresses.Your name was attached to ticket

number;575061725 8056490902 serial number 6741137002 This batch draws the
lucky numbers as follows 4-13-33-37-42bonus number 17,which consequently won
the lottery in the second category. You here by have been approved a lump
sum pay of US$250,000.00 (TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS) in cash credit
file

ref: ILP/HW 47509/02 from the total cash prize shared amongst eight lucky
winners in this category.

All participant were selected through a computer balloting system drawn
from Nine hundred thousand E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, United
States,Asia,Europe, Middle East, Africa and Oceania as part of our
international promotions program which is conducted annually.
This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomorate of some
multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the
citizens in the commmunities where they have operational base.
Further more your details(e-mail address) falls within our European
representative office in Amsterdam,Holland,as indicated in your play coupon
and your prize of US$250,000.00 will be released to you from this regional
branch office in Ghana. We hope with part of your prize, you will
participate in our end of this year high stakes for US$1.3 Billion
international draw.

HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE: Simply contact our Fiducial Agent, Charles Mensah
at : (charles_agent@sify.com)to file up your claim .

Please quote your Date of draw,Reference Number, Batch Number and Winning
Number, which can be found on the top-left corner of this message.
Also,you should give in your telephone number to help locate your file
easily.

For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information
confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize
has been released to you.

This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and
unwarranted taking advantage of this programme by non-participant or
unofficial personnel.

Note, Any breach of confidentiality will lead to disqualification of you
wining prize ,all winnings must be claimed before 30th April,2006 otherwise
all funds will be returned as unclaimed and eventually donated to charity.
Congratulations once again on your winning!

MR.Tony Martins

Co-ordinator.

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam