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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: Mrs Rose Martins <rose_222martins@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 02:03:35 +0900 (JST)
Subject: Compliments of the day

Compliments of the day to you!
By this e-mail, I do sincerely
apologize for my intrusion of your privacy. However, I have something
serious with great concern to share with you. I believe you can be of
help to advise and handle this issue, in this reason I decided to
contact you with good faith that you will handle this issue sincerely. I
am Mrs.Rose Martins, I'm married to Mr Edward Martins.who worked with
Philippines embassy in ABIDJAN for nine years, before he died in the
year 2008. We were both married for eleven years without children. I
decided to contact you to let you know my desire to establish a charity
foundation with some valuable amount of fund that will be sufficient to
build a charity foundation and distribute welfare items to less
privilege people within your community. I inherited the funds from my
late husband (Mr. Mr Edward Martins.) and I want to will the fund to
charity because of our affection for charity welfare. The Financial
Institution responsible for the deposited fund will load the money into
an Atm/Visa card under a confidential arrangement for success delivery
of the ATM/Visa card to your residential address, office or
Organization. It is my desire to see that this money is invested to any
charity organization of your choice within your community to help
distribute welfare items to charity Organizations, motherless baby’s
home, mosques, churches, Schools and also support destitute aged men and
women. You can invest part of the charity funds into a reliable venture
or whatever you may have in mind that will be to the benefit of the
less people. I took this decision because I was raised from a motherless
baby home and presently, I'm hospitalized here in Nice, UK where I
am undergoing treatment for my upcoming throat cancer surgery operation.
I will be waiting for your reply to confirm your acceptance to this
proposition so that I will give you all the relevant information for the
bank to authorize for the release and transfer the fund to you as my
assigned representative for the charity project.
Please help to pray for my health and quick recovery always! I look forward hearing from you urgently Warm regards,
Mrs. Rose Martins.

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