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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: Walter Jones <walter@walterjones.orangehome.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:52:07 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Good News You Won $2,500,000.00.!!


FROM THE DESK OF THE DIRECTOR
INTERNATIONAL PRIZE AWARD DEPT
Attn Lucky Winner,
WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "A" WINNER ONLY
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the last final annual draw of our Lottery International Programs.
The online cyber lotto draws was conducted from an exclusive list of 25,000,000 e-mail addresses of individual and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the internet. No tickets were sold.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
After this automated computer ballot, your e-mail address emerged as a winner in the category "A" with the following numbers attached Ref Number: PW 9590 ES 9414,Batch Number: 73881545-NL/2006 and Ticket Number: PP 3502 /8707-01 You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $2,500,000.00. (Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) from the total payout
CONGRATULATIONS!!!. Your prize award has been insured with your e-mail address and will be transferred to you upon meeting our requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report.
To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category "A" winners with the information below:
*************************************
Mr. Bona Henson
E-mail: mrbonahen@excite.com
Phone: +31 626 672 428
*************************************
You are advice to provide him with the following information:
Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake. Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence.
You are to keep all lotto information confidential, especially your reference and ticket numbers. (This is important as a case of double claims will not be entertained).Members of the affiliate agencies are automatically not allowed to participate in this program.
Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent
as soon as possible.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Yours Faithfully,
Walter Jones.
Lottery Coordinator.

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