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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: "WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION PROMOTIONS" <who_verificationdept15@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: worldhealth_claimsinfo61@yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:27:23 +0100 (CET)
Subject: *****SPAM***** Dr.B.Sadasivan, Chairman


Spam detection software, running on the system "mail.compute.hu", has
identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message
has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or label
similar future email. If you have any questions, see
deme@compute.hu for details.

Content preview: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION=AE 907 Strand Street, London =
WC2R
0QS Avenue Appia 20, CH - 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland Web: www.whoaward=
.net
WHO Clearance Number: WHO1000909 FBI Clearance Number: FBI9001801 Atto=
rney
General's Clearance NO: ATG64793. [...]=20

Content analysis details: (7.8 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- ---------------------------------------------=
-----
-1.8 ALL_TRUSTED Passed through trusted hosts only via SMTP
2.3 FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD 'From' yahoo.com does not match 'Received' he=
aders
1.3 MISSING_HEADERS Missing To: header
1.3 NA_DOLLARS BODY: Talks about a million North American do=
llars
0.6 US_DOLLARS_3 BODY: Mentions millions of $ ($NN,NNN,NNN.NN)
1.0 BAYES_60 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 60 to 80%
[score: 0.7312]
1.5 URIBL_JP_SURBL Contains an URL listed in the JP SURBL blockl=
ist
[URIs: whoaward.net]
1.5 URIBL_OB_SURBL Contains an URL listed in the OB SURBL blockl=
ist
[URIs: whoaward.net]
0.1 AWL AWL: From: address is in the auto white-list



Anti-fraud resources: