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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: FRANK EKE <eke-f3@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: <frankekeprivatemail@o2.pl>
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:28:43 +0100
Subject: HELP URGENTLY PLEASE


Dear Friend
Compliments. My name is Barrister Frank Eke (Esq). I am writing to inform you, that you happen to be the next of kin to my late client, an oil contractor who died in an oil pipeline explosion in 2002 where he was assigned for a maintenance culture of the shell out reach in Nigeria and the money for the contract was paid into his account before his death and only his kin that bears the same surname can come for the claim and for the past 5 years nobody has come, I am contacting you to come forward for the claim of the funds so the money can be paid to you after which you would pay me 20% of the total amount as payment for my legal fees and holding fees for the past 5 years.
The policy of the Bank however stipulates a limited time period for such inheritance to be made or the fund will be written off going by the record of the incident, the time limit for the claim is closing up. In this consideration, I am contacting you to make haste for your right,remember the total sum of money is US$10.5Million (Ten million, five hundred thousand U.S dollars only).
Contact me back for further instructions on how to proceed to claim these funds, providing me your private telephone numbers for easy communication, you can also write me through my alternative email address (frankekeprivatemail@o2.pl)
Yours truly,Barrister. Frank Eke (Esq.)
_________________________________________________________________
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