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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: William Harrison <williamharrson@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 17:56:40 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: VERY URGENT




I am sending this email to you personally as a result of the very urgent mandate I have received from my client Bank and my sincere believe that you can handle this with me. My name is Barrister William Harrison I was a personal attorney to late Mr. Andreas Shemeas, a crude oil merchant with Shell Petroleum Development Company here in Holland. Unfortunately, on the 6th of March 2006, my client and his entire household were involved in a ghastly motor accident which led to the loss of their lives before getting to the nearest hospital.



Since then, I have made several attempts both through their High Commission to locate his relatives but all to no avail. I was later made to understand by his former office that my late client had a fixed deposit account with a valued amount of US$26.3M with a reputable bank here in Holland which has since matured.



Accordingly, upon maturity of the deposit, a routine notification was sent to his contract employers (Shell Petroleum Development Company) by the Building Society and as his only known attorney, I was directed by Shell Petroleum Dev. Co. to comply with the bank's directive asking me to come up with the particulars of the next of kin of my late client to receive his money. Since all efforts to reach any of his relatives had so far failed, I decided to seek your consent to have the money released to you as his next of kin to avoid the money from being confiscated by the bank.

This is a deal I would like to handle with you for our mutual benefits. I already have everything worked out to ensure success.



I shall very humbly attach for your perusal, better understanding and trust, the statement of account as obtained from the bank as soon as I hear from you.

Contact me for further details as quickly as possible if you are interested in this glorious venture.



However I will be very grateful to hear from you and bring you into a much better picture of the situation.

Now my questions are:-

1. Can you handle this project?

2. Can I give you this trust?

3, How much will be you commission

consider this and get back to me as soon as Possible Upon the receipt of this mail message, feel free to send to me a brief of your profile to enable us start the process:

I look forward to receiving your prompt response

Regards,

Barrister Williams Harrison



NB PLEASE IF THIS PROPOSAL IS NOT APPEALING TO YOU KINDLY DELETE



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