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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: "Mrs.Joyce Perry" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <powerball5344@writeme.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:43:49 +0800
Subject: Official Notification.

POWERBALL LOTTERY PROMOTION.
Lottery headquarters:
362, Braxton court,
Carlton, east gate Johannesburg.
Reference number: PBLFA/310175234/ZA
Batch number: ZAR/2011/SA

Congratulations. The POWERBALL LOTTERY FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION, PBLFA is proud to inform you that you have just won Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (US$ 2.500, 000.00). This lottery is sponsored by South African football association, SAFA with fifty-six, 56 cooperate bodies. South Africa as just hosted the soccer world cup in June 2010.This was the first ever World Cup to be held in the continent of Africa. And we are celebrating this golden opportunity with this lottery.

We are also using this lottery to create awareness towards the hosting of the world cup in 2010 in South Africa. Don’t be surprise that you are one of our winners. The aims of this lottery are to surprise our winners.

However no previous notification was given before your email address was picked for this lottery draw.

Generally email address were picked and processed by the computer through a special program that is special designed for this lottery draw, the program is known as Random Access Program (RAP) This software picks email addresses from the internet and through a random process, picks the winners through their email address.

CLAIMING OF PRIZE
To claim your cash prize please contact the lottery manager Mr. Philip Khumalo immediately for more information.

Contact: Mr. Philip Khumalo
Email: powerball5344@writeme.com
Tel: +27 73 377 0645

For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program. Please be warned.

Congratulations!!!

Sincerely,
MRS. JOYCE PERRY.
PROMOTIONS MANAGER
POWERBALL LOTTERY
SOUTH AFRICA

Anti-fraud resources: