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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: jamesarnold@freenet.de
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:26:31 +0100
Subject: (TREAT URGENTLY)


FROM:The Desk of Dr James Arnold.Bill And Exchange Manager,(BOA)
(Bank
Of Africa) Republic of Benin.
E-mail: (jamesarnold@mixmail.com)
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL AND PRIVATE Attn... Compliments of the day. I
deceided to contact you after I received a worthy information about your
reliability and honesty. Hence I confide in you.
I am Dr James Arnold,
from (The Bank of Africa Cotonou Republic of Benin).During the course of
our auditing we discovered the sum of Fifteen Million Six hundred
thousand united states dollars (USD$15.600.000.00) floating in an
account opened in this Bank since 1997 and as from 2001 nobody has
operated on this account again, and after going through some old files
in the records I discovered that the owner of the account died without a
[HEIR]Dec 26th 2003 by plane crash, hence the money is floating.
Here
is the air crash website
onfiltered=
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/12/26/benin.crash/index.html
After due verification I noticed that no other person knows about this
account except his wife who was also invovled in the crash, and the
account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as
well that until his death he was the Director GOLD ARK [SARL]Since our
bank,(Bank Of Africa)Benin Rep.got information about his death, we have
been expecting his next of kin to come forward and claim his money
because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of
kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines
and policies but up to date nobody came up tothis bank as his next of
kin or relative. It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other
officials in my department now decided to make this businness proposal
to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to
thedeceased for safety and subsequent.disbursement since nobody is
coming forth and we don\'t want this money to go into the Bank treasury
as unclaimed Bill.
On this note, I decided to seek for whom his name
shall be used as the next of kin as no one has come up as his relation.
And the country law here does not allow such money to stay more than
Five years, for the money will be recalled to the government treasury as
unclaimed after this period.Upon the receipt of your response, I will
send to you the application form,bank\'scontact and the next step to
take. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this business is
hitch free and that you should not entertain any fear as all modalities
for fund transfer can be finalized within fourteen banking days, after
you apply to the bank as a relation to the deceased. It has been
resolved that 30% will be for you while 10% has been maped out to defray
any expences that might be incured during the process of the
transaction.
Then 60% will be for me which shall be release after the
funds must have been remitted into your bank account. When you receive
this letter, kindly send me an e-mail signifying your decision.Including
your private Tel/Fax numbers for quick communication.
Hoping for a very
successful business relationship with you.Reply to me by my private
E-mail Address (jamesarnold@mixmail.com) Best Regards,
Dr,James Arnold.

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inkl.
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