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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: s_sull023@yahoo.com.hk
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:42:19 +0700
Subject: Confirm back to me

Dear Friend,

I humbly beg for your understanding in regard to the content of this letter.
I appologise in advance if I have voilated your privacy by this. But due to
the urgent nature of this matter I cannot help but contact you for this
assistance.

Now, I was the personal Attorney to late Mr.Andreas Schranner, who was a
big time crude oil merchant / contractor with the Royal Dutch Shell company.
Mr.Andreas Schranner, his wife and only daughter all lost their lives in the
unfortunate Concorde Airliner crash of 1999 while traveling on holiday.

As his lawyer, his bankers wrote to inform me in 2007 that Mr.Andreas
Schranner left an investment deposit of USD$8,750,000 in a fixed deposit
with their bank in the United Kingdom and they mandated me to present his
next of kin so that his estates would be transferred to him/her. But for
over three years now, I have not been able to locate any of them after
traveling to his country on several occasions.

Consequently, the Bank has recently written another letter again to me
giving me an ultimatum of 30 days to present any extended family relatives
to stand-in as the next of kin/beneficiary of this fund deposit or have
these funds confiscated and declared unserviceable. I have made several
enquiries to the man's Embassy to locate any of his extended family
relatives to no avail.

This is why I'm writing to seek your consent to present you as the next of
kin to Mr.Andreas Schranne so that his bank can release his deposits to you
for our mutual benefit. Please be assured that this transaction is 100% risk
free as I will follow every step of it within the ambits of the law. All
necessary legal documents to back up all our claims, I guarantee will be
executed under a legitimate legal arrangement that will protect you from any
breach of the law. All I require is your sincere consent and cooperation.

For this assistance, you will be adequately compensated with 30% of the
total sum. Please realize that the confidentiality of this arrangement must
be maintained.

Please contact me immediately with your full details if you consent to this
arragement. We will discuss further details when I hear from you.

Yours,

Sandy Sullivan
U.K

NOTE: For your perusal see details of the unfortunate concorde Airliner
crash as was reported in this news website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

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