419 scam: Paul gardner <agentpaulgardner@yahoo.co.uk> Re: CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE THE WINNER

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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:

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!

Fraud email example:

From: Paul gardner <agentpaulgardner@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 15:10:37 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Re: CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE THE WINNER

Dear Ingeborge Ryan ,
This is british lottery international and i am mr Paul Gardner your claims processing agent. your email address is the luck winner of british lottery international for 2006 Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 564 75600545-188 with serial number
5388/02 drew the lucky numbe! rs: 31-6-26-13-35-7, which
subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category.
You have therefore been approved to claim a total
sum of US2,500,000.00 (Two million, Five Hundred Thousand,
United States Dollars) in cash credited to file
RPC/9080118308/04 made available from a total cash prize
of US $125 Million dollars, shared amongst the first Fifty
(50) lucky winners in this category.
All participants were selected randomly from World
Wide Web sites through a computer drawn system and
extracted from over 100,000 companies. This promotion
takes place annually. please reply immediatly to start your claims processing.

best regards
mr paul gardner.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam