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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "Patrick Ronny Martin" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <patrickmartin218@aim.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 13:46:42 +0200
Subject: Re:Good day

I hope this letter finds you well.
While this email will definitely be coming to you as a surprise, please take a moment of your time to read this. It is very important. I am Mr.Patrick Ronny Martin, working in a Finance house.
However I got your address through the International web directory online. During our recent reconciliation and auditing of our Finance house accounts, my department discovered an over dormant account with a huge amount of money valued at US$ 9,500,000.00 (Nine Million, Five Hundred Thousand, United State Dollars Only) that belongs to one of our late customer;

Who passed away leaving no beneficiary to the account. So the funds have been dormant in his account with this Finance house without any claim or activity on it for quite some time.
Due to our Finance house regulations, It is only a foreigner that can stand as a next of kin and it is upon this discovery that I decided to contact you to collaborate with you to reactivate these dormant funds. So to avert any negative development and chance losing these funds forever. I want you to stand in as next of kin to our late customer so that the fund will be released to you.
For Further information and confidentiality please contact me on my personal email address (patrickmartin218@aim.com)
with your following data:
Full names
Address
Tell oe fax number.

Best Regards,
Mr.Patrick Ronny Martin

Anti-fraud resources: