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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: Tim Smith <dr.tim5_smith@rocketmail.com>
Reply-To: tim541@walla.com
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:31:13 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Good Day,


I have a new email address!You can now email me at: dr.tim5_smith@rocketmail.com



- Good Day,First and foremost I would like to apologize for infringing on your privacy by sending you an unsolicited email, I would have given you a call, but rather I decided to contact you via an email to get us acquainted since it is a safer way of private communication. If you must know, I came about your contact information through a random search with my client's name on the Internet while trying to locate any link to him. I am Dr. Tim Smith a personal account adviser/officer to a great late industrialist who has an account in one of the top banks here in Ghana. It has been seven years now since he died in the year 2000 without a written or an oral will to the best of my knowledge from information I gathered via his attorney here in Ghana and since then nobody has operated on his account again hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing since the bank has been sold on Monday, 19 September 2006 to another ba!
nk and the management of the bank are now ready to release the fund to any foreigner who has the correct information of the account before fully handing over the management to the new bank. The owner of this account is a foreigner and no other person knows about this account or anything concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary. My investigation through the National immigration department proved to me as well that he was single as at the point of his entry into Ghana. As a matter of fact, I have decided to transfer this fund abroad for investment. Your assistance as a foreigner is necessary because the management of the bank will welcome any foreigner who has correct information to this account which I will give you immediately, if you are interested to do this business with me. Firstly, before I will disclose the said amount to you, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential. I am su!
re and have confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a
transaction of this great magnitude. I solicit your assistance to enable us transfer the said amount into your safe account for onward investment. You can either provide us with an existing account or to set up a new bank account immediately to receive this money, even an empty bank account can serve to receive this money, as long as you will remain honest to me till the end for this important business trusting in you and believing that you will never let me down either now or in future. As soon as I hear from you, and upon your strong assurance that you will not let me down once the fund goes into your account I will then start to process the transfer of the fund to your account without further delay. If interested contact me through my private email (tim541@walla.com) for further details.Yours Faithfully,Dr. Tim Smith,Accra- Ghana


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