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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: Sani BONNI <mrsb@voila.fr>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 14:58:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: My Dear Can I trustee you???


Good Day My Dear,

I am Mr. Sani BONNI; it took me time and divine intervention to write you this mail for financial transaction as we have never had any correspondence before. Actually, I am sending this mail to you base on information I got from the foreign affairs of Burkina-Faso.


I believe that you will be in a position to assist me in our Bid to transfer the sum abandoned floating fund belong to one of our bank foreign customer the sum of Seven million, One Hundred thousand United States dollars ($7.1M USD) into a reliable account in your country.


The fund has been lying in a suspense account so may years in this bank without anybody coming to put claim over the money.  Moreover, the banking rules here on 5Th June 2013 stipulates that if the total fund of ($7.1M USD) remained unclaimed after one year then the money will be transferred into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund.


Since nobody is coming for it and I don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill. Upon this discovery I decided to contact you to work on it so that the fund will be releasing to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased customer for safety.


Hence this mail to you, if you are really sure of your trustworthiness and confidentiality on this transaction contact me and accept not to your mind to disappoint me when the fund is transferred into your account.

Thanks,

Mr. Sani BONNI.
Senior Auditing and accounting section,
(BOA)

Anti-fraud resources: