419 scam: "Mr. Tony Smith in Ghana"<mfranciszkiewicz@o2.pl> Congratulations once again.

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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:

An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
1. They don't notify winners by email.
2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- tony.smith2010@hotmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Fraud email example:

From: "Mr. Tony Smith in Ghana" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <tonysmith567@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:03:48 +0100
Subject: Congratulations once again.

You got $1 Million in this February 2010 Microsoft Mobile Draw. You email id was among the ten million emails selected from over hundred million websites all over the world and your email address is among the lucky winners of the $1 million each ,this is to compensate all our internet users in this era of recession. Send your details to Mr. Tony Smith in Ghana .email: tony.smith2010@hotmail.com, the information’s to be sent to him is as stated below

your full name

your complete address

your occupation

your mobile phone number

your marital status

Your age and date of birth

All the above requested information’s will be used by our agent to open an online account so that the paying bank will deposit your winning fund into it, for your information we don’t allow our agents now to handle any money awarded to our winners, your winning funds will be handled directly by the paying bank who will open online account for you to enable you transfer your fund to any account of your choice.

Congratulations once again.

Thanks.

Microsoft Team

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam