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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: "Mr Paul Christopher" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <paulchristopher_ghn01@yahoo.cn>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 11:22:22 +0100
Subject: GREETINGS TO YOU

Good day to you.
And Compliments of day and New Year. This mail may be a surprise to you because you did not give me the permission to do so and neither do you know me but before I tell you about myself I want you to please forgive me for sending this mail without your permission. I am Mr. Paul Christopher, The audits director of my bank branch, Tema branch- Ghana, ADB- Bank.
With due respect and regard, I have decided to contact you on a Business Transaction that will be very beneficial to both of us and our families in future. I am a Ghanaian married with three kids. I am writing to solicit your assistance in the transfer of $7,500.000.00 U.S Dollars. This fund is the excess of what my branch in which I am the manager made as profit during the 2012 financial year. I have already submitted annual report for that year to my head office here in Accra as I have watched with keen interest as they will never know of this excess.
I have since placed this amount of $7,500.000.00 U.S Dollars on an Escrow Coded account without a beneficiary (Anonymous) to avoid trace. As an officer of the bank, I cannot be directly connected to this money thus I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive this money into your bank account on my behalf.
Although personally, I kept this information secret within myself to enable the whole plans and idea be profitable and successful during the time of execution. I agree that 45% of this money will be for you as a foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 5% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 50% would be for me. I do need to stress that there are practically no risk involved in this. It's going to be a bank-to-bank transfer. All I need from you is to stand as the original depositor of this fund so that the fund can be transferred to your account.
This is why and only reason I contacted you, I am willing to invest the fund into your company with your wealth of experience, So please if you are interested to assist on this venture kindly contact me back for a brief discussion on how to proceed .
I wait for your kind response after reading this email and questions were in doubts for clarification.

Regards,
Mr. Paul Christopher


Read! Think!! Decide!!!
This is a world of opportunities! Some people are born great; some are made great while some achieve greatness. But then a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity while an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. Where is your category?

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