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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: William Howard <william@smxx.org>
Reply-To: howard.will@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:41:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP(PLEASE REPLY ASAP)


Attn: Sir/Madam

I am Barrister William Howard, the Personal Attorney to Engr. Kishore Bhavesh, a national of your country ,who was an oilconsultant/contractor with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC).

On the 26th of December 2004, my client,his wife and their only son were involved in a Motor Accident within Patani Road Warri Portharcut,unfortunately they all lost their lives in the event of the Accident, since then I have made several enquiries to your Embassy to locate any of my client's extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful, after these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the Internet to locate any member of his family but of no avail, hence I contacted you.
I contacted you to assist in repartrating the money and property left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declaredunserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits were lodged. Particularly, the Bank where the deceased had an account valued at about $15 million U.S dollars(Fifteen million us dollars).

Conseqently, the bank issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated within the next ten official working days, since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the the relatives for over 2 years now.I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you are from the same country so that the proceeds of this account valued at$ 15 million U.S dollars can be paid to you and then you and me can share the money, 50% to me and 45% to you,while 5% should be for expenses or tax as your government may require. I have allnecessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make.

All I require is your honest co-operation to enable us see this deal through.I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.
Please get in touch with me by email to enable us discuss further.

Yours Faithfully.

Barrister William Howard.
115,Adeniyi Jones Avenue, Ikeja.
Lagos - Nigeria.
Phone:234-802-3893220

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