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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. David Osbert" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <d.osbertt1@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 14:48:00 -0200
Subject: Urgent......

Dear friend,

My Name is Mr. David Osbert a banker. I got you contact from the internet in my search for a very reliable person and i decided to contact you for this business deal. However, I hope that you will not betray this trust and confident that I am about to repose on you for the mutual benefits of our both families.

I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of ($11.8M. USD) to your account within 14 banking days. This money has been dormant for years in our Bank without anyone coming for claims. Since the death of Mr. Johnson, we have made several inquiries to locate any of his extended relatives and this has also prove unsuccessful, we could not find any of them, since he did not inform us before the accident.

However, after my investigation on this fund, I want the bank to release the money to you as the nearest person to our deceased customer who died along with his supposed next of kin in an air crash since July 31st 2008.

I have every detail of the fund and for this good reason I don't want the money to go into the Reserve Bank of Ghana, as an abandoned fund which will eventually end in the pockets of the directors and for this reason I have contacted you to present you as the next of kin to the deceased customer so that the bank can transfer the funds into your account. Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete it if you are not interested. Please endeavour to provide me with the following so that we can discuss in details.

1)Mobile phone numbers
2)Full names
3)Contact address and occupation

Upon receipt of your reply, I will give you full details on how the business will be executed.


Best Regard,
Mr. David Osbert.

Anti-fraud resources: