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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: Todd Keil <davdave34@gmail.com>
Reply-To: toddk1955@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 09:07:39 +0100
Subject: Good day.

Good day.

My good friend, I hope that you will not expose or betray this trust
that I am about to impose on you. I decided to contact you to help me
actualize this business for our benefit. My name is Todd Keil,the
Auditing and Accounting section manager in Bank section, there is one
of our customers who have made fixed deposit of sum of ($6.2)million
for 9 years and upon maturity; I sent the notification to his address,
but no response. After few months, we sent a reminder and finally we
discovered from his business partner that he died after a brief
illness in his country. We tried everything humanly possible to locate
his relatives or family, but all efforts failed. The deposit is still
intact with my bank and the interest is being paid into the principal
sum at the end of each year.

The bank agrees recently that if the fund remains in the account for
more months, it will be confiscated and transferred into the
Government treasury as unclaimed funds based on the law. Hence my
contact you for join hands with honesty and truth to ensure that the
fund is transferred into your bank account and a bank account in
anywhere in the world can help the transfer. All that will be required
of you is to contact my bank with the information I will send you as
the next of kin or a business associate of the depositor and the fund
will be paid into a bank account you will provide. To be honest with
you, this is totally legal and 100% risk free.

But the secret must remain between you and me, I have worked with
this bank for many years and I know all the secrets and I have
carefully mapped out my perfect strategies to handle this operation
successfully. The depositor is my close friend before his death that
is the main reason why I know much about the existence of this fund
and the depositor. We will also use some part of the funds to help the
orphanage and less privileged children in the world.

Please keep this proposal as a secret between us and delete it
immediately in your mail box if you are not interested.
But if you are interested give me an answer immediately.

If this proposal is acceptable to you, kindly email your following
information to me:
a. Full Name(s)
b. Direct phone & fax number(s)
c. Your direct email & any other information you may deem helpful.

I await your response.
Todd.

Anti-fraud resources: