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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: "REBECCA BRAZELL" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <rebecca.brazell@zing.vn>
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2012 18:06:29 -0600
Subject: IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Attn; Beneficiary
I'm Rebecca Brazell, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance. We wish to urgently confirm from you if actually you know one Mrs. Cynthia Edward who claims to be your business associate/partner.
Kindly reconfirm this application put in by Mrs. Cynthia Edward - she submitted the under listed bank account information supposedly sent by you to receive the funds on your behalf.
The bank information she applied with are stated thus:
Account Name: Cynthia Edward
Bank name: Citi Bank NA
Bank address: #1230 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA
Account Number: 1343988765
Routing Number: 113024915
 
The said Mrs. Cynthia Edward has claimed to this office that you are dead and have Instructed that all relevant documentation/Information regarding your Payment/Transfer, be changed to her as the beneficiary of the payment short-listed among the foreign beneficiaries entitled to receive their payment.
For your Information, this Government has approved the total amount of EIGHT MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS ONLY [$8,500,000.00 USD] in your favor, prior to the Federal Government instructions/mandate to offset all outstanding payments to the various legal foreign beneficiaries around the world and your payment file was affected. We need to confirm from you if it's really true that you are dead as made mention by your Associate.
You should note that, if we do not hear from you, we automatically assume that you are actually dead and the information passed to us by Mrs. Cynthia Edward is correct. Hence, you are hereby requested to reply this Email immediately for confirmation, before we proceed with this payment and for us to know the true position of things with you so that we won't make any mistakes/errors in remitting your out-standing payment to a wrong person/account.
Lastly, you are advice to reply back this email and reconfirm the details of this message if truly you're alive.
Full name....................................
Direct telephone number......................
Address......................................
Age..........................................
Occupation...................................
Country......................................
Bank name....................................
Bank address.................................
 
Account Name.................................
Bank account no.................................
Routing number.................................
Your quick response will help us a lot.
Yours, Sincerely,
Rebecca Brazell.
Ministry of Finance
315 221 8177
 
NOTICE: This confidential e-mail/attachment contains information intended for a specific individual(s) and purpose.  Any inappropriate use, distribution or copying is strictly prohibited.  If you are not the intended recipient and have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and immediately delete the e-mail.

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