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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: Paul Essien <esspaul28@yahoo.fr>
Reply-To: pessien001@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:18:18 +0100 (CET)
Subject: Compliment,


Compliment,

My name is Mr.Paul Essien, a political activist and an attorney. I am a member of my party s executive committee.

My aim of contacting you is to crave your indulgence to assist us in securing some funds abroad for safe keeping which incidentally was kept to help us finance our election this year 2008. Fortunately with my immediate assistance, and contact, we were able to deposit the money in a bank vault pending when the fund would be needed.

The need to contact you arose from the fact that the present government is cracking down on the opposition and trying to trace all the funds that belong to it,if they succeed in tracing this fund to us, they will seize it and thereby incapacitating our campaign abilities.

We wish to relocate this fund in a foreigner's name to avoid any trace. All I need from you is an assurance that you can handle the amount involved (US$19,5M) comfortably and that I can also trust you with this arrangement. Be rest assured that there is no risk involved since I have taken care of everything. I want you to immediately inform me of your willingness in assisting and co-operating with us, so that I can send you full details of this transaction and let us make arrangement for a meeting and discuss at length on how to transfer this funds.

Please if you are not interested in this business, let me know in time, so that I can contact someone else.

Yours sincerely,
Mr.Paul Essien.

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