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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: "Patrice Ble" <patriceble20@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 17:28:59 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Your Honour.

Your Honour.

It's my pleasure to acquaint you with this proposal for a financial and
business assistance, I truly understand the inconvenience this letter
might cause you since the media has been grossly abused and unsafe for any
business purposes as I propose a transfer of an undeniably sum of
$17,597,000.00 dump in the bank by a customer who unfortunately died in a
tragedy accident, like most healthy people he never envisaged such a
tragic death. However, haven exploit the means to trace the deceased
family through the internet, I found you are the closest match even though
you are not his relative, for several years; the issue of his foreign
address and next of kin was raised in more than one occasion but he was
reluctant to do so and was rather looking forward to returning to his
native country in the next few years and therefore didn't see the need for
a will locally or given out his foreign address, which should have been
used to meet the real family. I have a 30 days grace to present the
decease family relative as beneficiary to claim the money or it will be
paid to the government treasury as an unclaimed deposit.
My proposal is to seek your cooperation so I can present you to the bank
as the decease next of kin to claim the fund. There is absolutely no risk
involved, it will be my responsibility to convince the bank to transfer
the money to you; all that is required of you is your name, address and
phone number.
Your bank details will also be required, I would however suggest you open
a new bank account with no deposit exclusively for this transaction.
Upon your acceptance, your name will be forwarded to the bank for transfer
process which accompanied by the necessary documents (bank to bank)
thereby providing your bank with full support documents detailing the
source of the transfer, the idea is to prevent your bank from asking you
awkward questions in this regard. I would be delighted to address any
questions you may have as well as how we share the money. You will be
directed in due course on where to redirect my own share after deducting
yours of course.

I can be reached by email.

Cordially,
Patrice Ble





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