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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: "Betty Shotts" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <bettyshotts@linuxmail.org>
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 05:59:13 +0100
Subject: From Mrs. Betty Shotts

>From Mrs. Betty Shotts

I am Mrs Betty Shotts from virginia,USA, I am 68 years old, I am deaf and suffering from a long time cancer of the breast, from all indication my conditions is really deteriorating and it is quite obvious that i can't work or do any stressful thing, according to my doctors they have advised me that i may not live for the next two months, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage. I was brought up from a motherless babies home was married to my late husband for twenty years without a child, My Husband (Mr. Robert Shotts) died in a fatal motor accident Before his death we were true Christians.

Since his death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and deposited all the sum of Four Million Dollars with a Security Company in Madrid Spain.

Presently, this money is still with them and the management just wrote me as the true owner to come forward to receive the money for keeping it so long with attract a demurrage fees as the security fees paid by me has expired or rather issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf since I can not come over because of my illness or they get it confisticated.So instead of getting it confiscated i rather have someone whom i can trust to receive the funds and utilize it according to my wishes. And the best part of it is, the security company told me in the letter that they can have the consignment funds delivered to my approved next of kin in his house if within Spain or transferred to his bank account and if outside Spain then transferred to his or her bank account.

Presently, I'm with my laptop in a hospital in Germany, where I have been undergoing treatment for my sickness. I have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that I have only 2 months to live. It is my last wish to see that this money is invested/donated to any organisation/buisness of your choice and distributed each year among the charity organization,E.g the poor homes, the motherless babies home where i came from, the deaf homes, and churches etc .All i seek for is a God fearing person like you, who will carry out my last wishes and before i emailed you today i prayed and the holy spirit gave me the confidence to send you this email. I took this decision, before i rest in peace because my time will soon be up.

As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Security Company in Spain. All i need from you is a confidential assurance that the funds when received by you will be used for the said purpose, Nowadays there are so much scams going on in the internet and it is difficult to trust but i don’t know why the Holy spirit still approved me to email you about this out of few email addresses i have from the internet, yours was the only one that was approved for me to contact.

Waiting for your reply.

Yours In Christ,
Mrs.Betty Shotts

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