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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: Annabella Estes <anbella17estes@gmail.com>
Reply-To: anna17estes@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:20:01 +0200
Subject: Assurance Needed From You


Dearest,

Greetings to you and your family. My name is
Mrs.Annabella Estes. I'm 65 year?s old woman and from
England . I was a Gold merchant and owned two businesses in London
and also a textile mill in West Africa. I was also married with two children.
My husband who also happens to be an English man and two children died
in a car accident six years ago.

Before this happened, my business and concern for making money was all
I live for. I never really cared about other values in life. But since
the loss of my family, I have found a new desire to assist helpless
families. I have been helping orphans in orphanage/motherless homes. I
have also donated some money for humanitarian needs in London , South
Africa , Cameroon , Brazil , Spain , Austria ,Germany and some Asian
countries. Only recently I saw on television the colossal loss of
properties and livelihood in Haiti due to the earth quake over
there. I was moved with great pity and compassion that I decided to
make this contribution on assisting people over there, I kept
$14,700,000.00 Fourteen Million seven hundred thousand United State
Dollars in a
long term deposit with a Finance company.

Presently, I'm in a hospital where I have been undergoing treatment
for esophagi cancer at one of the best teaching hospital in Accra Ghana.
I have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that
I have only few months to live. It is my last wish to see this money
distributed to victims of the flood in Asia and other charity organization.
Because relatives and friends have plundered so much of my wealth since
my illness, I cannot live with the agony entrusting this huge responsibility
to any of them.

Please, I beg you help me collect the deposit and distribute it
accordingly. Use
your judgment to distribute the money generated from the sales and keep 20% of
it to yourself. Feel free to reimburse yourself when you have the
money for any
cost you in
cure during the process of collecting and distributing the money. If
you are willing to help, please reply as soon as possible.

May the good lord bless you and your family.

Regards,
Annabella Estes





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