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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: Patrice Ble <patriceble@voila.fr>
Reply-To: patriceble20@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 08:51:59 +0100
Subject: Good day,

Good day,

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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