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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: "Morgan & Menendez Abogados" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <morgan2abogados@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:07:50 -0700
Subject: [GSN Suspected Spam] Information About Your Family Tree

Hello friend,

Ref: Information About Your Family Tree.

When someone dies without leaving a will and there's no known relative to
inherit, the government receives the money. Unless, a previously unknown
distant relative; a descendant from the same ancestor is found within a
limited time frame at the discretion of the treasury department to claim
the inheritance as laid out in section 46 of the Administration of Estates
Act of 1925.

As stated in our previous letter, we are legally empowered to track and
reunite unclaimed funds with distant relatives of people who have died
without making a will or known next of kin and after an extensive
genealogical research effort, we have traced a dormant termed deposit bank
account with your family name and the account has a substantial amount of
money on it now tagged "unclaimed funds" which you are legally entitled
to. The bank is compelled by the laws to hand over the funds (as unclaimed
funds) to the government if no claim is made immediately. Apparently, the
funds belongs to one of your family members who reportedly died intestate
five years ago leaving behind a substantial amount of money in the bank
account unattended.

The money is yours (or your family's), not the bank's or the Government's.
It's legally yours on positive proof of your identity being a distant
relative of the deceased on forth degree ("statutory legacies"), a
descendant from the same ancestor before the bank is compelled by law to
hand the money to the government.

Important Note: we have been retained by two senior officials of the bank
to administer the estate and reunite you with the dormant account because
you have been identified and located as the only suitable heir apparent to
the estate with the same last name and our initial consultation is free,
yes, it's free but we will charge a contingency fee of 5% of any sum
recovered from the bank. Which means you and/or the two bank officials
will not pay us a cent unless we recover money for you and you owe it to
yourself and your family at least to explore this rare life changing
opportunity.

It might interest you to know that every year in Spain thousands of people
(especially foreigners) die without leaving a will or known next of kin
thereby forfeiting so much money to the government as unclaimed estate.
There is a time limit at the discretion of the Treasury Department when
claiming such inheritance hence the need to act swiftly to reconcile this
account.

In a recent news report, "there is currently more than $30 billion in
unclaimed money and with the total of unclaimed money rising faster than
people claiming, it is projected that in the year 2020 there could be as
much as $40 billion of unclaimed money. Aging population is adding more
significantly to this number". This is what prompted us to locate you and
legally empower you to claim the estate before it becomes too late.

In compliance with standard requirements of the federal disclosure and
privacy laws which prohibit us from revealing certain privileged
information without due process, we intentionally left out certain
information which we deemed proprietary at this point and to enable us
double-check our record and ensure that you are indeed the addressee of
this letter, we need you to reconfirm your information by sending the
following informationations to my private email box morganrabogados@lawyer.com

Your full names (no initial please):
Your date of birth:
occupation:
contact address:
telephone/fax numbers:

Once we reconfirm your information and endorse same appropriately, we shall
provide you with all the privileged information/legal documents relating
to the deceased customer and his term-deposit account and also will give
you guidelines on how we intend to realise this goal without the breach of
the law.

We would respectfully request that you treat the content of this letter as
privileged and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a
result of this correspondence.

Contact this law office immediately for more information and to begin the
legal process of redeeming your lawful entitlement before the bank is
compelled by law to hand over the money to the government waiting for your
reply.

Most Sincerely,
Richard W. Morgan (Managing Partner)
Morgan & Menendez Abogados

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