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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: "James Dapoya" <jdapoya3@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 20:42:35 +0000
Subject: Hello


Hello

I am the head of Accounts and Audit Department of Bank of
Africa,Ouagadougou.Burkina faso .i decided to contact you after a careful
thought that you may be capable of handling this business transaction which
i explained below;

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $10.5m US dollars (Ten
million, five hundred thousand US dollars). In an account that belongs to
one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in 1998
in a plane crash. 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 for it as next of kin or relation to the
deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt
that his supposed next of kin(his son and wife) died alongside with him at
the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim .It is therefore upon
this discovery that I and other officials in my department now decided to
make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next
of kin (We want to present you as his business associate )to the deceased
for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we
don't want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.

Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your account as
arranged,you must apply first to the bank as next of kin of the deceased
customer.Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the
text of the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this
transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear
as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.

I expect that you call me on my private number +226 78824606 for more
details immediately you receive this letter.

Hoping to hear from you immediately.

Yours faithfully,

James Dapoya
Accounts & Audit Department ,
Bank of Africa

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