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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: Richard Wong <ricchuu@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: richard.wg@qq.com
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 08:00:05 +0700
Subject: Good-day

Hello, I am Richard Wong a staff of one of highly reputable financial institution here in London, United Kingdom, and I am the head of operation. I am pleased to get across to you for a very urgent and profitable business proposal which I believe will profit both of us on completion. I contacted you after a careful thought that you might be capable of handling this business transaction which is explained below. The sum of (84,000,000.00 Million British Pounds), has been floating as unclaimed since 2000 in my bank as all efforts to get across the relatives of our client who deposited the money have hit the stones. There was this immigrant by name Mr. Andreas schranner, property magnate who was based in the U.K, who happens to be one of our clients. On the 25Th of July 2000, Mr. Andreas Schranner, his wife Maria , their daughter Andrea Eich, her husband Christian, and their children katharina and maximilian all died in the air France concord plane crash bound for New York in their plan for a world cruise, see the link for more details of the plane crash http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm All attempts to trace his next of kin were fruitless. My position here at my office requires me to investigate and I therefore made further investigations and discovered that Mr. Andreas Schranner did not declare any next of kin or relation in all his official documents, including his bank deposit paperwork in my bank. According to the British Law. The money will revert to the ownership of the British government if nobody applies to claim the fund. To avoid this money being sent to the British treasury as unclaimed funds, I have decided to seek your assistance to have you stand as his beneficiary so that the said fund (84,000,000.00 Million British Pounds), would be released in your name as the beneficiary. All documents and proof that will have you claim this fund will be forwarded to you without any stress upon your response to this email more soon, I want to inform you that I have unanimously agreed to offer you (45%) of the total sum for the assistance and role you are going to play in this transaction, while I will take (45%) and (10%) left will be used to cover all expenses and tax as your government may require. If you are interested do furnish me with the following details so I can file you in as the beneficiary here at the bank. 1. Name in full: 2. Address: 3. Nationality: 4. Age/Sex: 5. Occupation: 6. Direct Phone number: Kind regards Richard Wong

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