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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: Rebecca Harmon <rebeccaharmon467@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 16:00:08 +0700
Subject: I need your assistance here

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Rebecca Harmon and I plead with you to read my email and do as I
will direct you here. I was born of a US father and a Thai mother and I
have been living in Thailand since the age of 6 when my mother returned to
Thailand from the US after she got separated with my father and I never
married. I grew up to become an exporter of rice and I can say I was a
successful business woman. Presently, I am suffering from hematological
malignancy, a cancer that has eaten up my blood cells and bone marrow. I
have taken medical steps to more than nine different countries and no
solution could be offered to treat the sickness. I have been battling with
this sickness for more than four years now and the doctors have now
confirmed that I have less than two months to live. I need your help and
urgently at that to put a smile on my face before I die. You may be
wondering what kind of help you will offer a dying woman.

Please, I want you to help me reach out to the poor and homeless children
who cannot afford food and good health care in your country. I have decided
to use the money I am leaving behind to put smiles on the faces of the poor
children. I have the sum of six million, thirty four thousand US dollars
(US$6,034,000) deposited with a bank here in Thailand and I want to use
this for charity purposes.

Since I cannot reach out to these people myself considering my state of
health, I have decided to offer you the task of doing this service for me,
your status does not matter to me as long as you can do what I have asked
you to do. My relatives and friends have wasted so much of my wealth since
my illness and I cannot live with the agony of entrusting this last and
important responsibility to any of them again. This is how you should
apportion the money, 80% of the money should go to homeless and suffering
children. If there are charity homes for these people, you can split and
distribute the money to them. Let it be used solely to improve the lives of
the suffering children while the remaining 20% will be for you for carrying
out this task for me. Doing this is the only thing that can put a smile on
my face before I die or while in my grave.

If you are willing and capable of doing this, you are to contact my lawyer
on this email address:tosanmmrs@yahoo.co.jp

You only need to tell him you are writing him regarding the charity fund of
Ms. Rebecca Harmon and he will work to transfer the money to you since I
have already told him of my intentions. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Ms. Rebecca Harmon

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