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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: <ken_obi@d1g.com>
Reply-To: ken_obi54@yahoo.ca
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:47:42 +0300
Subject: BUSINESS PROPOSAL




FROM THE DESK OF;
HON.KEN OBI
ECOBANK OF NIGERIA
MAITION DE ECOBANK PLC,
2,WUSE ZONE ABUJA
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.
Private address,

Dear Friend,

I am ken obi, A staff of ECO BANK,in the department of bills
and exchange at the foreign remittance Department, of Eco bank of
Nigeria plc.

In my department, we discovered an abandoned sum of (US$ 20.5m)
Twenty Million , Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollar only, in
an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers who died
along with his entire family in November 2003 in a plane crash.For
more
information on the plane crash log on to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3348109.stm [2]
Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his
next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot
release it unless somebody applies as a next of kin or relation to
the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines.

Unfortunately we learn that his supposed next of kin or
relations
died along with him at the crash leaving nobody behind for the
claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other
officials
in the department now decided to make business with you, that is, to
release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the
decease since nobody is fronting for the money and we do not
want this fund to go into disbursement account as unclaimed bill.
The banking law and guidelines here stipulates that if such money
remained unclaimed after six years the money will be transferred
into
federal government account as unclaimed fund.

The request of a foreigner as next of kin in this business is
occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and an
indgene can not stand as a next of kin to a foreigner. We agreed
that 40% of this money will be for you as the foreign partner and
10%
for expenses incurred during the cost of remittance.

Therefore to enable immediate transfer of the fund to you as
arranged, you
should contact me on my private ! e-mail address here
for
security reasons.
And you should contact me immediately for further briefing:
{ken_obi54@yahoo.com [3]}
I look forward to hearing from you soon as you must Include your
personal data such as:

{1} Phone and fax numbers
{2} Bank account
{3} Your full name and address
May god bless you as you respond to this. I await your prompt
response.
Regards,
ken obi,
Foreign Remittance Dept.


Links:
------
[1] mailto:ken_obi54@yahoo.com
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3348109.stm
[3] mailto:{ken_obi54@yahoo.com

Anti-fraud resources: