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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

• About the 419 (Advance Fee) scam
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• Company names mentioned in 419 spam:
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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.

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:

• An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
• The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
  • "the consignment" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
  • "million dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
• This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
  
• This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
  • bryanrowe@mail15.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Fraud email example:

From: office.mail5@freenet.de
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 05:31:08 +0100
Subject: RE:YOUR ABANDONED CONSIGNMENT



Attn: Beneficiary,

I am the new EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR and Head of
Operations of Overseas Credit Commission London, UK. Sometime ago, in
our organization your overdue consignment fund was brought to our office
forfinal delivery clearance. However, upon my arrival to this office, I
found your consignment clearance file lying fallow on my desk without
any attention. On a thorough scrutiny I discovered that your consignment
have been abandoned by your delivery agent. Meanwhile, I have made
several attempts to contact your delivery agent but to no avail.

To
my greatest surprise, during my recent routine checking, I personally
discovered that your consignment content declaration documents stated
that your consignment contains personal effects meanwhile, it contains
United States dollar bills worth over US$ 1 Million dollars, which made
it impossible for the consignment to be delivered to you earlier before
now.

Based on this personal discovery, I am contacting you now to let
you know that with my position and power in this office, I can assist
you to legally clear your consignment fund, but you must agree with the
following conditions:

You must not disclose to any member of my
organization whatever assistance that I am going to render to you in
respect of clearing this consignment fund into your custody.You will
provide me with an authenticated promissory note, otherwise known as
partnership agreement, that upon the safe arrival of the consignment
fund to your custody, that you give me 30% of the total fund contained
in the consignment.You must give adequate attention to this matter until
we successfully and legally clear the consignment fund into your
custody.

Upon your acceptance with my above conditions, I will furnish
you with further details of what should be done to legally get the
consignment fund cleared and delivered to you as the rightful owner of
the consignment. Meanwhile, if you know that you would be unable to keep
the secret of my assistance to you in this regards, please do not border
to reply.

Hence the consignment fund would be recovered into our
organization treasury account as unclaimed consignment fund. But if you
can assure me of your competency to keep this secret, I would like to
hear from you soon as possible so that I can email you further details
and guidelines.

I am looking forward to your earliest response.

Have
a Great Day

Mr.Bryan Rowe
Head of Operations

E-mail:bryanrowe@mail15.com

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam