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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: "Admin Staff" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <systemeagleeye@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 18:08:11 +0100
Subject: Estate Notice

ESTATE NOTIFICATION!

I am Vincent Walter of the Bona Vacantia Division (BVD), our agency has the mandate to recover unpaid inheritance. Our duty is to ensure that the beneficiaries receive their fund as approved.

We discovered that the total sum of Ten Million Pounds was approve in your favor and the said fund is yet to be communicated/paid out to you as the beneficiary hence this estate has remain unclaimed since its approval.

My agency have completed arrangement to have this fund paid out to you by a special cash delivery at any of our nearest paying offices in your region or by a direct wire transfer to your account.

To ensure that the fund is paid out to you as approved and attached to your email address, you are required to get back to us ASAP for the payment modalities.

Yours Sincerely
Mr. Vincent Walter
Director of Treasury.22-10

Anti-fraud resources: