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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: samuel sedan <sedansam34@msn.com>
Reply-To: <sedansamuel@yahoo.es>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 11:17:19 +0000
Subject: urgent please.



GREETINGS, I am Mr Samuel Sedan the manager of Auditing and Accounting departmentof a prime bank in Africa. In my department, i discovered an abandonedsum of US$36 Million dollars (thirty six million dollars) in an accountthat belongs to one of our foreign customers(John Shumejda) who died ina plan crash on 4 January 2002. You can view this CNN site for moredetails.http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/01/04/england.plane/I need a reliable someone with a foreign account to be able to receivethis money, even an empty account can serve to claim this money. Shouldyou be willing to complete this transaction, send to me your privatetelephone number for easy and effective communication and location. Assoon as the transfer is concluded you are entitled to 25% of the totalfund.Upon receipt of your reply, I will give you more details on thistransaction trusting to hear from you. Yours Faithfully,Mr Samuel Sedan

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