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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: Thomas Winkler <tomwinkler1@msn.com>
Reply-To: <thomwinkler@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 21:25:48 +0000
Subject: Proposal from Thomas



Proposal from Thomas
Natwest Bank
United Kingdom

Hello,

I am an investment consultant working with Natwest Bank of England, at their offshore department London England. I will be happy to work this deal out with you if you have a corporate or personal Bank Account and if you are capable to keep TOP SECRET.I need strong Assurance that you will never let me down, if I transfer this money to your account. During one of our periodic auditing I discovered a dormant account with holding balance of 18,000.000.00 {Eighteen million Pounds only} this account has not been operated for the past years. As at this moment, I am constrained to issue more details about this business until your response is received.

If you are not familiar with my Bank profile, please take a moment of your very busy schedules to read about my Bank website; www.natwest.com and I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible if you are interested, on replying send me the followings.

YOUR NAME:
YOUR BANK DETAILS TO RECIEVE IN COMING FUNDS:
YOUR TEL NOS.:

Thank you for your time and attention.

Warmest regards,

Mr. Thomas Winkler
Chief investment Consultant

Natwest Bank
Piccadilly & New Bond Street
63 Piccadilly
GB - London W1J 0AJ
United Kingdom


Anti-fraud resources: