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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: (sent from abused email account)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:25:32 -0800
Subject: ****SPAM(13.0)**** Top Of The Day


Spam detection software, running on the system "www.telnorm.com.mx", has
identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message
has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or label
similar future email. If you have any questions, see
postmaster for details.

Content preview: Top Of The Day, It is really very unfortunate that this=
mail
is coming to you at this very time that junk mail has been the order o=
f the
day. Even myself have been beneficiary of such flying mails but that n=
ot
withstanding, the Internet still remain the best and fastest means of c=
ommunication.
You may not understand why this mail came to you. We have been having =
a meeting
for the passed months, which ended two days ago with the secretary to =
the
UNITED NATIONS. [...]=20

Content analysis details: (13.0 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- ---------------------------------------------=
-----
3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 99 to 100%
[score: 1.0000]
0.1 RDNS_NONE Delivered to trusted network by a host with n=
o rDNS
1.0 FB_WORD1_END_DOLLAR BODY: Looks like a word ending with a $
0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
1.9 MIME_HTML_ONLY BODY: Message only has text/html MIME parts
2.2 XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_1ECD5 XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_1ECD5
0.1 FORGED_OUTLOOK_TAGS Outlook can't send HTML in this format
1.3 MSOE_MID_WRONG_CASE MSOE_MID_WRONG_CASE
0.0 FORGED_OUTLOOK_HTML Outlook can't send HTML message only
3.0 FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
-0.2 AWL AWL: From: address is in the auto white-list

The original message was not completely plain text, and may be unsafe to
open with some email clients; in particular, it may contain a virus,
or confirm that your address can receive spam. If you wish to view
it, it may be safer to save it to a file and open it with an editor.


Anti-fraud resources: