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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: "Ng Ten Thoon" (may be fake)
Date: Sun, 6 May 2012 04:03:57 +0100
Subject: Hello.

Hi,

I have a business proposition for you,please allow me give you a brief introduction of what I have in mind.

I work as a safe deposit manager at my bank here in Singapore, giving me access to a lot of unclaimed deposits in accounts the owners are either dead and dont have any beneficiary to make claims, I have been monitoring one of such accounts and I can comfortably state that the account is available for us to benefit from, I have done all my investigations carefully and found out the funds are just lying in the accounts for decades and will finally go into the federal reserve.

The funds in the account are at my disposal and I need you to stand as the original depositor and the funds will be transfered to you and we can share equally. This is very straight forward transaction, Understand that nobody knows about the existence of this account, it is only a matter of time before the funds are reverted back into my government's federal reserve so we need to proceed very fast.

I agree to a equal share of the money for your assistance, I will explain more clearly when I get your response, thank you. Ng Ten Thoon.

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