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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:

Fraud email example:

From: "Paul Megene" <paulme_15@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: paulme_1@yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:55:37 +0200
Subject: BUSINESS REQUEST




Mr.Paul Megene.
BRANCH MANAGER
First National Bank
JOHANNESBURG,SOUTH AFRICA.
E-MAIL:paulme_1@yahoo.com
TEL:27 73 755 5954



My name is Mr.Paul Megene, the present branch Manager of a bank here in
South Africa. I write you this proposal in
good faith, believing that I can trust you with the information I am about
to reveal to you. Like I said, I have a transaction that will benefit both
of us, as your assistance is required as a foreigner.

I use to head the Accounts department in my bank head office, but last
December I was asked to take position of a Manager of our branch in
Johannesburg who passed on, so that was how I became the present Manager and
discovered a fortune. As I resumed duty, I discovered an account with total
sum of $9,500,000 million that has not been operated on for the past 4
years. From my investigation, I found out that this account belongs to one
Late Mr. Morris Thompson an American great industrialist and a resident of
Alaska, who unfortunately lost his life in the plane crash of Alaska
Airlines Flight 261 which crashed on January 31 2000, including his wife and
only daughter. You shall read
more news about the crash on visiting this site which I got during my
investigation; http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/


The account is escrow call account, a secret type of account in my bank and
no other person knows about this account or any thing concerning it, the
account has no other beneficiary. I have kept a close monitoring of the
account since then and nobody has come forward to ask about the money as
next of kin to the late Mr. Morris Thompson, meaning that no one is aware of
the account. I cannot directly take out this money without the help of a
foreigner and that is why I am contacting you for an assistance to claim the
funds and share it with me. As the Manager of my bank branch, I have the
power to influence the release of the funds to any foreigner that comes up
as the next of kin to the account,
with the correct information concerning the account, which I shall give you.

I am seeking your co-operation to present you as the next of kin to the
account, so that my bank head quarters will release the funds to you. There
is practically no risk involved, the transaction will be executed under a
legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any
breach of law.

If you accept to work with me, I want you to state how you wish us to share
the funds in percentage, so that both parties will be satisfied. Contact me
as soon as you receive this message if you feel we can work together, so we
can go over the details.

Thanking you in advance and may God bless you. Please, treat with utmost
confidentiality. I wait your urgent response. You can as well contact me by
my phone number is +27 73 755 5954.

Regards,

Mr.Paul Megene.

_________________________________________________________________
Discover the magic of RSS feeds at MSN South Africa! http://za.msn.com/


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