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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: "Mr.Gordon Chen" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mr_gordon@usa.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 18:50:16 -0400
Subject: San Gabriel Branch

Mr. Gordon P.Chen
Vice President/Manager
Bank Of East Asia USA (NA)
San Gabriel Branch
168 West Valley Boulevard,
San Gabriel, CA 91776, USA
 
Dear Friend!!!
 
I am Mr. Gordon P. Chen of The Bank of East Asia USA, San Gabriel Branch, California (USA), I write to seek your consent to carry out a transaction that would be highly beneficial to you and i. I know you may be wondering why I am contacting you for this despite all the friends and relations that I have but I decided to do this with an unknown person to avoid any form of blackmail in the future.
 
 
MR. DAVID ANGELL     was an account holder with my bank. I have been his account officer for 11 years before his death. He died during the World Trade Centre bombing in September 11 2001
 
Since his death, the management of my bank has made series of efforts to locate his family but all efforts were proved abortive. I also carried out series of research to find his family but it was confirmed that the mother who was the only surviving member of the family died at the hearing of the son’s death.  He was already divorced before his death and due to this fact; no one was able to claim the fund he deposited in my bank legally because there was no will to it. He had a secret dollar account with my bank worth the sum of $58,200,000.00 (Fifty Eight Million, Two Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) with an interest agreement of 6.7% which have been for the past 11 years.
  My purpose of contacting you now is this:
 
 
My bank during the last executive board meeting resolved that if by the end of this year and there is no beneficiary to the said account, the account will be confiscated and the fund sent to the bank treasury and this is where I am interested in and wants you to come in:
 
 
I want you to come in as the Next of Kin/Beneficiary to this account. I have all the titled documents to back your claim and as the Vice President and Manager of this branch, it is in my power to carry out any form of verification on the beneficiary of the said fund and process the fund wire without any problem. I want you to know that this is legal and 100% risk free as all the titled documents would be changed to your name and the fund wired to any bank account you wish to have it wired to,
 
 
Please note that I am willing to let you have 40% of the total sum while you give me 60% when the fund finally gets to your nominated bank account. Also note that I am willing to go extra mile to make this a success because if anything goes wrong, then I stand the risk of losing my job and even go to jail for trying to carry out such transaction.  This is why I am contacting you so that we can put heads together and take care of this transaction within now and the next 9 days.
Kindly get back to me immediately so that I advice you on how this would be carried out.
Sincerely,
Mr. Gordon Chen
Bank Of East Asia USA

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