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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: "weli ali" <aliww1@fastwebmail.it>
Reply-To: welialitg@hotmail.fr
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:06:23 -0700
Subject: FROM THE DESK OF- MR WELI ALI


FROM THE DESK OF- MR WELI ALI
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER (U T B)
FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPT.
UNION TOGOLIASE DE BANQUE

My Dear ,

I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department
of union banque du togoliase, I'm writing to you this letter, following the
impressive information about you through one of my friends who runs a firm
in your country, He assured me of your capability and reliability to
champion this business opportunity.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $5.5m dollar(five
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 plan crash,
Note i shall send you the plan crash website ans our bank website as soon as
i hear from you.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of
kin to come over and claim his money because we can not release it unless
somebody applies for it as a next of kin or relation to the deceased as
indicated in our banking guidelines and laws, but unfortunately we learnt
that all his supposed next of kin or relation died along side with him at
the disaster leaving no body 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 don't 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 an unclaimed fund, The request of a foreigner as a next of kin
in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner
and a togoliase citizen cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.

We agree that 30% of this money will be for you as a foreign partner, in
respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10% will be set aside for
expenses incurred during the transaction of this business and 60% will 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,
you must apply first to the bank as a relation or next of kin of the
deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account, your private
telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location
where in the money will be remitted.

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 business
is hicth-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all
required arrangements has been made for the transfer.
You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.

Yours faithfully,

MR Weli Ali

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