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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "ALVARO CHAMBERS" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <agomezluna@hispavista.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:26:01 +0100
Subject: ALVARO CHAMBERS

Dear, Friend,

Before i proceed, I must first apologize for this unsolicited mail to you. I am aware that this is certainly not a conventional way of approach to establish a relationship of trust, but you will realize the need for my action.. My name is Barr. Alejandro Gomez Luna. Actually, I got your contact information through a public records in internet while searching for a reliable partner who will act as a next of kin to my late client, Eng. George Pitts, an expatriate engineer who lived and worked in Spain with REPSOL for Nine years. He died along with his family during the Tsunami catastrophe, which occurred on December 2004.
Before his death, he had almost 9.5M (Nine Million, Five Hundred Thousand Euros Only) with a bank here in Spain, which as his trusted attorney, signed as a witness that day. In accordance with Spanish banking guidelines which indicated that if such money remained unclaimed and unserviceable for a period of seven (7) years, it would be transferred into the Government Treasury as unclaimed fund. The Bank will soon declare the funds unserviceable and the account closed due to dormant of the account and the fund transferred to the government coffers. The bank has been waiting for any of the next of kin to come and claim the fund but nobody came up till now,The bank as a last resort decided to contact me last 3 weeks to present any family heir/inheritor/next of kin for claim before the funds gets confiscated or is reverted to the Spanish government established Bureau for Unclaimed Deposits (BUD). So I decided to search for any of my late client's relative which has been very di!
fficult for me,
as he did not declare any other person, address, partner or relatives in the official paper works of his deposit, and also with the client contract documents between us.
Against this backdrop, my suggestion to you is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand as the next of kin to Eng. George Pitts, I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this fund cannot be approved for a local account as the depositor is a foreigner, the fund can only be approved to a foreigner or into a foreign account. With my position as his lawyer, I will now place your name as the next of kin to my late client and prepare every relevant document that will assist your claims, and facilitate the release of the funds to any account you will provide to the bank.
Actually this transaction is real and one hundred percent risk free and does not relate to any breach of law or proceeds from drugs. It was as a matter of necessity that i contacted you for this transaction without further investigation about your person. Please confirm your willingness for us to carry this project out by providing all the requested information below
(1) Your Full Legal Name, (2) Your Contact Telephone Numbers (Including Your Mobile Number for easy communication. (3) Your country of origin.
You can contact me via my personal an email: agomezluna@hispavista.com or agomezluna@terra.es for further discussions. Please be kind to get back to me if you are not interested so that I can further my search for another partner. This should be kept very secret and confidential. I believe you know.

Best Regards

Alejandro Gomez Luna

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