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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: "Mrs.Jennifer Woodward" <jenwoodward0074@msn.com>
Reply-To: <jjwoods45@msn.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:01:22 +0000
Subject: Urgent Response Needed.



Dear Beloved,

Greetings in the name of the Lord! My name is Mrs. Jennifer Woodward. I am terminally ill and have decided to donate my inheritance from my husband to you. No doubt, you may wonder how I got to know you and your email/names and what informed my decision to will my fortune to you, when I have lots of people I know better to whom I should have willed my fortune here. Dear, you have no cause to worry about these questions, for I mean no harm.

Regarding how I got your personal details, it is via the internet with the help of the nurse assigned to attend to me in my private ward here in the hospital. Because I cannot surf on my own due to partial stroke, it is the nurse who surfs for me under my direction. On deciding to donate my fortune to an individual, I instructed her to search from the net 15 individual profiles at random and to conduct randomized sampling on the profiles and whosoever the profile is chosen, I shall donate my inheritance to, hence your profile was chosen. Therefore, I am donating my fortune to you partly because of your selection random sampling experiment and because my husband and I never had any child, despite all our attempts at child-bearing.

Again, it may interest you to know that I am 59 years old and have been diagnosed of acute cancer for about about 2 years now, shortly after the death of my husband, which made me hypertensive and resulted in stroke. In my present condition, life is without meaning to me and hope has since eluded me. Each day I give my entire existence a thought, I feel over-powered by gloom and despair and saw nothing but death lurking around. All these are my reasons for deciding on using anything in my name for charity in which co-incidentally you have been favored as the beneficiary. I must tell you that I was truly touched by God to take this decision/action.

I decided not to donate my inheritance to the people I know around me but instead a stranger, because if I did, upon my death, my husband's relatives will engage the beneficiary in litigation (court case), claiming the donation is without their consultation and consent and to that extent my decision/action is null and void, and they may use their connections and influence to reclaim or recover it, a thing I hate to imagine! My husband's relatives are such that it will amount to betrayal of my late husband if I let them have his hard-labored fortune and enjoy it, despite how they mistreated my late husband under my very nose. God forbid that I will let them reap where they did not sow. This is, again, part of the reasons for my decision/action.

I will expect that you will as am about doing to you this day do to the lives of others, for life is better lead on the philosophy of give and take. I will advise that you don't see your windfall as avenue for pleasure spree but should see it as an opportunity to build and grow your personal finances to an enviable level, for both your benefit and the benefit of others.
Always put me in your prayers and ask God to forgive me my sins and trespasses. I shall be undergoing major operations in less than a month from now and have willed/donated the sum of £3,650,979.00 (Three Million Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand & Nine Hundred & Seventy Nine Great British Pounds) to you for personal use and for the purpose of helping the needy and less-privileged around you.

Please, note that, because I do not want my husband's relatives ,who have spies all around me, to know of the latest developments, coupled with my worsening health condition, I shall not entertain phone calls and conversations. If you are sure that you will use the donated fund as I have advised here, contact my Account Officer to help you arrange the transfer of the fund to your account. You may reach my Account's Officer via his private details below:

Account Officer:Mr.Benard Hughes
Mobile: +44 703 596 0623
Tel: +44 703 596 9525
Email: mr.bernardhughes@yahoo.co.uk

When contacting my Accounts Officer, it is necessary to furnish him with the details below so that all the paper works will be changed to your name to facilitate the transfer can be arranged :-

Full Names:
Address:
Telephone number:
Age:
Occupation:

You should give my account officer your co-operation so that he assists you fully in the processing and remittance of your donation/bequest. All the best!

Mrs. Jennifer Woodward.
Email:jjwoods45@msn.com
CC: Account Officer
Mr. Bernard Hughes

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