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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "jona williams" <jonawilliams10@telegraf.by>
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 12:17:10 +0100
Subject: URGENT ATTENTION NEEDED


*From Desk Of Mr Jona Williams.
Bill And Exchange Manager
Bank Of Africa. (B.O.A).
Email Address; **mrjonawilliams@yahoo.fr* <mrjonawilliams@yahoo.fr>
*Dear Sir/Madam,

Compliment of the season,

I am Mr Jona Williams , the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign
remittance Department of (BANK OF AFRICA. (B.O.A) I am writing to seek your
intrest over a transaction. In my department we discovered an abandoned sum
of $15.6m(Fifteen Million Six Hundred Thousand United State of America
Dollar) .In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died
along with his entire family in a plane crash on the 26th of Dec.2003. 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 all his supposed next of kin or relation 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 or relation to the deceased for safety and
subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we dont want this
money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill. The Banking law and
guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after Five
years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury as unclaimed
fund.

The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by
the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Benin Indigine cannot stand
as next of kin to a foreigner.We agree that 30 % of this money will be for
you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10
% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 60 % would
be for me and my colleagues.

There after I and my colleagues will visit your country for disbursement
according to the percentages indicated. Therefore to enable the immediate
transfer of this fund to you as arranged, Upon receipt of your response to
this mail indicating your willingnes towards this venture, I will send to
you by fax or email the space-man copy of the application as the first step
toward this deal which you will use to apply to our bank as the next of kin
to the decsaese.

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.

You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter with my
Altenative Email Address below;
**mrjonawilliams@yahoo.fr*<mrjonawilliams@yahoo.fr>
* for more explanations.

Trusting to hear from you immediately.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Jona Williams *

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