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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: (sent from abused email account)
Reply-To: <allenandviolet@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2012 08:45:45 +0800
Subject: 5 lucky individuals all over the world

Dear Sir/Madam

This is my seventh time of writing you this email. My wife and I won a
Lottery of $11.2 million in July and have voluntarily decided to donate the sum
of $1,000,000.00 USD to you as part of our own charity project to improve the
lot of 5 lucky individuals all over the world.

If you have received this email then you are one of the lucky recipients and
all you have to do is get back with us so that we can send your details to the
payout bank.

You can verify this by visiting the web pages below.

http://www.care2.com/causes/lottery-winner-who-gave-away-her-entire-prize-dies-of-cancer.html

Good-luck,
Allen and Violet Large.

Anti-fraud resources: