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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: =?iso-8859-1?q?Smith=20Andrew?= <smitan20062@yahoo.co.in>
Reply-To: ansmit20061@myway.com
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:51:38 +0530 (IST)
Subject: Contact Me Fast.


I have a new email address!You can now email me at: smitan20062@yahoo.co.in

102 Harley St

Central London W1G 9PG,

United Kingdom.

ansmit20061@myway.com



Hello,

I am Mr. Smith Andrew,an Auditor of a London bank.During the course of our auditing,I discovered a floating fund of(£18.5M.)eighteen Million Five Hundred Thousand British Pounds in an account opened in the bank in 2002 and since 2003 nobody has operated on this account.


After a lot of investigation I discovered that the owner of the account died without a beneficiary. The money is floating and if I do not remit this money out it will be forfeited for nothing.



The owner of the account is a foreigner.He died since 2003 and the account has no other beneficiary. My investigation proved to me that nobody knows about this account or anything concerning it.So I want to grab this opportunity, as it is no harm to nobody to transfer the money out.



I need your assistance as a foreigner because the money cannot be approved to anybody here. The management must approve this payment to you if you have the correct information of this account, which I

will give to you,upon your positive response and once I am convinced that you are capable and will meet up with instruction of key bank official who is deeply involved with me in this project.



With our influence,we can transfer the money to any foreigner’s reliable account,which you can provide with assurance that this money will be intact pending our physical arrival at your end for sharing.



At the conclusion of this business, you will be give 20% of the total amount, 75% will be for the bank official and I, while 5% will be for expenses both parties might have incurred during the course of this transaction.



Regards.

Mr. Smith Andrew.

- Smith Andrew


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