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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: BMW ONLINE PROMOTION <claims_bmwgroupdpt@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:02:02 +1300
Subject: YOUR REPLY IS NEEDED HERE=?ISO-8859-1?B?/g==?=

good day to you sir

we have sent you our payment information for the payment we have not yet recieved your reply to the mail, did you
recieve our mail we sent you? we also told in the mail that everything is in orther here,

so do visit WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER for your delivery payment.

sir your reply is needed here,

we have aready sent you the name of our account officer in our payment information we sent is stated there,

we await your reply to this mail soonest.

regard
jerfarson colker

Anti-fraud resources: