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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: "woody thami" <tha20000@rediffmail.com>
Date: 10 Jan 2007 16:05:51 -0000
Subject: PLEASE CALL ME!!!!!!!!!!!


MR.THAMI WOODYDEPARTMENT OF MINERALS AND ENERGY,PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA.woodythami@yahoo.de&nbsp;ATTN: Mr/ Mrs &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; CONFIDENTIAL &amp; URGENTIt is my great pleasure to write you this&nbsp; letter on behalf of my colleagues. Your information was given to me&nbsp; by a member of the South African Export&nbsp; Promotion Council (SAEPC) who was with the&nbsp; Government delegation on a trip to your&nbsp; country for a bilateral conference talk to&nbsp; encourage foreign investors. I have decided&nbsp; to seek a confidential co-operation with you&nbsp; in the execution of the deal hereunder for&nbsp; the benefit of all parties and hope you will&nbsp; keep it confidential because of the nature of&nbsp; this business.&nbsp;Within the Department of Minerals &amp; Energy&nbsp; where I work as a Director of Audit and Project Implementation and with&nbsp; the co-operation of two other to
p officials, we have in our&nbsp; possession an overdue payment in US funds.The said funds represent certain percentage&nbsp; of the total contract value executed on&nbsp; behalf of my Department by a foreign&nbsp; contracting firm, which we the officials&nbsp; over-invoiced to the amount of&nbsp; US$26.500,000.00 (TwentySix Million Five&nbsp; Hundred Thousand US Dollars). Though the&nbsp; actual contract cost has been paid to the&nbsp; original contractor, leaving the excess&nbsp; balance unclaimed.&nbsp;Since the present elected Government is&nbsp; determined to pay foreign contractors all debts owed, so as to&nbsp; maintain good relationship with foreign&nbsp; governments and non-government agencies, we&nbsp; included our bills for approvals with the&nbsp; Department of Finance and the South Africa&nbsp; Reserve Bank (SARB). We are seeking your&nbsp; assistance to front as beneficiary of the&nbsp; unclaimed funds, since we are not allowed to&nbsp; operate foreign accounts.&nbsp;Details and change of bene
ficiary&nbsp; information upon application for claim to&nbsp; reflect payment and approvals will be secured&nbsp; on behalf of you/your Company.I have the authority of my partners involved&nbsp; to propose that should you be willing to&nbsp; assist us in this transaction your share as&nbsp; compensation will be US$6.625m (25%), while&nbsp; my colleagues and I receive US$17.225m (65%)&nbsp; and the balance of US$2.650m (10%) for&nbsp; taxation and miscellaneous expenses incurred.&nbsp;The business is completely safe and secure,&nbsp; provided you treat it with utmost confidentiality. It does not matter&nbsp; whether you/your Company does contract projects, as a transfer of&nbsp; powers will be secured in favour of you/your&nbsp; Company. Also, your area of specialization is&nbsp; not a hindrance to the successful execution of&nbsp; this transaction. I have reposed my&nbsp; confidence in you and hope that you will not&nbsp; disappoint us.&nbsp;Thanks for your co-operation.Regards,MR.THAMI WOODYReply Me:woodyt
hami@yahoo.de
N.B Please email your confidential Telephone and Fax number to enable me contact you for further&nbsp; clarifications.

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