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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: "H.P" <harryp@aol.com> (may be fake)
Reply-To: consult_palmerh@yahoo.es
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:14:43 +0000
Subject: Harry

Compliments of the day
This letter might come to you as a surprise as we have not met before,. My name is Harry Palmer, a divorcee, I am a Zimbabwean. I am a farmer in Zimbabwe. Basically, I was involved in Agricultural production, until August
(2003), when the government of Robert Mugabe decided to seize all farm-land(s) owned by whites in Zimbabwe (without compensation). He (Robert Mugabe) did not stop at that he also went on to expel all White farmers in Zimbabwe. He implored the services of his war veterans to undertake his seizure. The war veterans have been accused (correctly) of being behind the violent occupation of white-owned commercial farms in which
an estimated 70,000 farm workers have been displaced. At least, over hundreds white farmers and black settlers have been killed since the farm invasions began in February 2000.Although we know that we are taking a great risk by staying here in Zimbabwe. At the Moment, our phone lines are bugged, and all our movements are being monitored by Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabes) secret Police. Therefore email is the safest means of communication for now. We (White farmers in Zimbabwe) have
taken our case to the United Nations and even with the threats of transactions and the subsequent sanctions from the West against the Zimbabwean authorities, Robert Mugabe (The president of Zimbabwe) still remains adamant. He is insisting that our farm land (some of which we bought with our money and most of which we inherited from our fathers) belongs to the (his) government of Zimbabwe. Since I could not keep the
money in Zimbabwe, I used the services of a Diplomatic Courier Company to move this money (registered as official documents) out of Zimbabwe to Abroad. At present, my money totaling US$7000,000.00 (Seven million United States dollars) is in oversea and hopefully, it would be invested in your country. Can you help me? And are you capable of handling this money? If you can, please contact me all you need to do is to claim this money from the Security Company. For your assistance, you will be entitled to 20% of the total sum. You will also help/advise on the proper and most convenient way of investing this money in your country, hopefully, you will consider this request and respond positively.
Yours sincerely,
H.Palmer


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