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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: steller ray <steller_raymond2@yahoo.fr>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:16:44 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Good Morning How are you doing


Good Morning How are you doing
Dear friend, 
 
               How are you doing and your family there, i'm steller raymond from
Burkina Faso west african, I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign
remittance department of the bank of Africa. I saw your contacts in internet search,
after much consideration i decided to write you since I can not be able to see you face
to face at first.
I will like you to take your time to read this mail carefully. I did not mean to
embarrass you with my business proposal but i seriously need your assistance. Please
this is a confidential matter and it requires urgency.
In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of  u.s $12.5m dollars (twelve million
five hundred thousand usd) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer
who died along with his entire family on monday,31 july,2000, in a plane crash , since
we got information about his death, we have been expecting his or her next of kin to
come over and claim his money because we can not release it unless some body applies
for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking
guidelines and laws, but unfortunately we learnt that his supposed next of kin died
along side with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
It is therefore upon this discovery, i now decided to make this business proposal to
you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for
safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and i don't want this
money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill. The banking law and guideline
here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after 12 years, the money will be
transferred into the bank as unclaimed bill, i therefore agree that 40% of this money
will be for you as foreigner partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account,
10% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 50% would be for
me. There after i will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages
indicated.
                 Therefore, to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as
arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relation or next of kin to the deceased
indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax
number for easy and effective communication and location where in the money will be
remitted. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch-free
and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have
been made for the transfer.
You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter. Trusting to hear
from you immediately.
Yours faithfully
 Steller Raymond



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