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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: "WESTERN UNION" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <wunion2011@zh8844.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 14:15:50 +0800
Subject: URGENTFINAL, PAYMENT NOTIFICATION...

WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER
MALAYSIAN PAY-OUT CENTER

Attention Beneficiary,
We wish to inform you that the United Nations (UN) has taken over the
Inheritance/Prize Winning payment issue which you currently or previously
had with your transaction agents. Your funds was withdrawn by UN on your
behalf based on the fact that you where subjected to too many processes that
will make you spend more money before receiving your funds.

Your Inheritance/Winning payment was paid out to the United Nations Organization,
and they have succeeded in depositing your funds with us. They have ordered
Western Union to take full responsibility in the transfer process of your funds, and we
have received your application for the first installment of $7,600 USD from the total
amount of $1,500,000.00 USD, One Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars.

For some security reasons, we need you to reconfirm your Name, Address, Age and Phone
Number before receiving the MTCN for the first installment, and we will email you others
after 24 hours of receiving each payment.
E-mail Dr.Vinsen Chin @ wunion2011@zh8844.com

OR call our 24 hours Helpline @ +60.143-457-907 for any inquiries on the above message.

Yours truly,

Miss.Shuhaida Hamzah
For: Western Union Payment Service Malaysia
(URGENT) FINAL PAYMENT NOTIFICATION.

Anti-fraud resources: