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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 Frank Saidu <drfrank_saidu2010@yahoo.co.jp>
Reply-To: franksaidu01@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 22:17:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: I NEED YOUR URGENT REPLY CONFIDENTIAL PLEASE




 Dear friend,
 
I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise, I got your  contact address from the computerized search. My name is  Dr Frank  Saidu. I am the Bill and Exchange (assistant) Manager of BANK OF AFRICA (B.O.A) Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
 
In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of ten million four  hundred thousand United State of American dollars (10.4 MILLION USA DOLLARS ) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer Mr Kurt Kuhle from Alexandra Egypt who died along with his family in  Siber airline that crashed into sea at Isreal on 4th October 2002.
 
Since I got information about his death I have been expecting his next  of kin to come over and claim his money because we can not release it  unless somebody applies for it as the next of kin or relation to the  deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines, but unfortunately we  learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside  with him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
 
It is therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this  business proposal to you and release the money to you as next of kin  or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement  since nobody is coming for it and I don't want the money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill.
 
Am contacting you because our deceased customer is a foreigner and a  Burkinabe can not stand as a next of kin to foreigner customer.

The banking guidelines stipulate that the fund should be transferred into the bank treasury after 8years if nobody is coming for the claim.
 
I have agreed that 33% of this money will be for you as foreign partner in respect to the provision of your account for the transfer,  2% will be set aside for expenses that might occurred during the  business and 65% would be for me, after which I shall visit your country for disbursement according to the percentagesindicated.
 
Please I would like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a top secret as you may wish to know that I am a bank official.
 
Yours sincerely,
Dr Frank Saidu.



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