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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: "okoal12@libero.it" <okoal12@libero.it>
Date: Tue, 21 May 2013 02:45:51 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: hi

From/Alexia.

I hope this mail meets you well, I contacted you for an urgent business
assistance,but first of all,let me introduce myself to you so that you know who
i am,my name is Alexia oko, I am 19 years girl, I am the only child of my Late
father Dr. Stevens Oko,He was a famous cocoa merchant in Ghana. Fortunately he
was poisoned to death by my step mother and my uncle and want to kill me
because of my late fathers properties.

Since the unexpected death of my beloved Father,my step mother and my uncle
planned to take away all my late father's treasury and properties from me. I
wanted to escape to any where in the world but she hides away my international
passport and other valuable traveling documents. Luckily she did not discover
where I kept my father’s File which contains important documents.So I decided
to run to the refugees camp where I am presently seeking asylum under the
Private charity organization for the Refugee Camp here in Ghana.

However life here in the refugees camp is stressful and i honestly prays to
move out from here as soon as you help me.I need your assistant to relocation
and transferring of my inheritance money into your account in your country for
investment, so that I can come to where you are, continue my education.

The total amount I inherited from my father is $5.5M (Five Million Five
Hundred Thousand US Dollars)this was deposited on my name as the only child of
my parent.Therefore I am constrained to contact you for immediate assistance
because the bank told me that the deposited funds was deposited with an
agreement that if can only be transferred in a foreign account of whomever i
present to them.I am willing to offer you 20% of the total money as a mode of
compensation after the transfer for your time and effort.

Please if you are ready and capable to assist me get back to me so that i can
send you all the details so that we can start the process immediately,take care
and i hope to hear from you very soon on my email address: msalexia.
oko@hotmail.com

Yours
Alexia
(msalexia.oko@hotmail.com)

Anti-fraud resources: