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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: "David Diop" <davidk@mail.az> (may be fake)
Reply-To: daviddiop@mail.az
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:31:54 +0200
Subject: Please respond

Dear Friend,

I am Mr.David Diop,the Director of bill and exchange at
the foreign remittance department of CITI BANK Senegal.
In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $6m in
an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer
(Kurt Kahle) who died along with his wife and son on a Monday, 31 July, 2000,13:22 GMT in a plane crash.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

Since we got information about his death, we have been
expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money
because we cannot release it unless some body applies for
it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated
in our banking guidlings and laws but unfortunately we
learnt that all his supposed next of kin died alongside
with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the
claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I now
decided to make this business proposal to you and release
the money to you as the next of kin to the deceased for
safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming
for it and we don't want this money to go into the bank
treasury as unclaimed bill.

The banking laws and guidlines here stipulates that if such
money remained unclaimed after some years, the money will
be transfered into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund.
The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business
is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a
foreigner.

I agree that 30% of this money will be for you as a
respect to the provision of a foriegn account , 10% will
be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and
60% would be for me Thereafter, I will visit your country
for disbursement according to the percentage indicated.
Therefore, to enable the immediate transfer of this fund
to you,your private telephone and fax number for easy and
effective communication is very important.
I will not fail to bring to your notice this transaction
is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any attom
of fear as all required arrangements have been made for
smooth and succesful transfer. You should contact me
immediately as soon as you receive this letter.
Trusting to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely,
Mr David Diop



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