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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: "Dr. Wilson Saul" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <inter391678512009@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:38:20 -0700
Subject: Re: Contact Western Union for Your Claim!

Dear beneficiary,
 
With effect from Federal Ministry of Finance online email draw done last week, your email address was selected as the one of the ten lucky winners of $4.5millions. Atlantic bank was appointed by Federal Ministry of Finance to pay you total ($4.500, 000 millions) which your email address won, we congratulate you as you receive it. So we have left an instruction to ABN to transfer your fund through western union money transfer or to send you an ATM card with valued $4.5millions.
 
The chairman, national assembly parliament committee on foreign fund matter has already signed approval for your payment. The sum of $4,000usd will be install mental transferring to you via western union on daily basis. So contact Mrs. Mary Patrick, the western union cashier of Atlantic bank to start paying you immediately.
 
Name: Mrs. Mary Patrick (Western Union Agent)
E-mail: ( w.union@9.cn )
Hotline: + 234 (0) 705 232 3471
 
Take note that Atlantic bank is the only financial institution that we instructed to transfer your fund, therefore you better stop any further communication with any other person(s) or office(s) to avoid getting yourself cheated because it has came to our notice that some group of people has been using this letter to scam innocent people oversea which our law is against it. So, send your payment info her like: receiver name, address, telephone number, test question and answer.
 
Comply now by sending this required detail to Mrs. Mary Patrick, she will start sending $4000 to you daily. E-mail her immediately you receive this message, so that she will attend to you urgently.
 
Congratulation once again,
 
Regards
Mr. Wilson Saul.

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