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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

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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:

• 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.
  • seanthompson@uk2.com

Fraud email example:

From: "winnersnotification E-game lotto" <winnersnotification_1@msn.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 01:55:18 +0000
Subject:

The National Lottery

(Customer Services)

P O Box 1010 Liverpool,

L70 1NL UNITED KINGDOM

Ref: UK/9420X2/68

Batch: 074/05/ZY369

ANNOUNCEMENT:

We happily announce to you the draw (#991) of the UK NATIONAL ONLINE Online Sweepstakes International program held on Wednesday 10th  Oct 2005.Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 56475600545 188 with Serial number 5368/02 drew the lucky numbers: 01,04,07,44,47,48,14 which subsequently won two(2) of you the Rollover prizes of £8,787,420.

Therefore you have been approved to claim a total sum of £4,393,710 (Four Million,Three Hundred and Ninety Three Thousand,Seven Hundred and Ten Pounds Sterling)when converted to united state dollar is $8,030,908 (Eight Million and Thirty Thousand,Nine hundred and Eight dollar) in cash credited to file KTU/9023118308/03  

All participants for the online version were selected randomly from the World Wide Web through a computer draw system and extracted from over 100,000 unions, associations, and corporate bodies that are listed online. This promotion takes place weekly.

For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claim is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize.

This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming

and unwarranted abuse of this program be warned.

To file for your claim,you are strictly advised to contact our claims processing officer with the below contact information:

Sean thompson(SIR)

Tel:447031847232

EMAIL-seanthompson@uk2.com

Congratulations from me and members of staff of the UK NATIONAL LOTTERY.

Yours faithfully,

WINNERS NOTIFICATION(MR)

Online coordinator for UK NATIONAL LOTTERY

Sweepstakes International Program

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam