419 Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam (2006-01)

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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:

This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.

Fraud email example:

From: mark macou <mark.macou@yahoo.pt>
Reply-To: mark macou <mark_macou@outlook.fr>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:17:50 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: I need your urgent response so that i can release more
information's to you.

Â Attention Dearest,
I am Sir.Mark Allen, a bonafide friend to late Nick NORRIS and a respresentative of his family members.

I am contacting you because of the way i treasured your profile.I knew you may be suprise the way i got your email but never mind I got your email in an international Professional data base when I was searching for a reliable and competent partner.

In brief,I was a friend to Late Mr. Nick Norris from USA who lost his life in Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

He was on a business trip to Asia before his sudden death, before then, he left in an europe bank 10 Million USA Dollars in the bank transit vault account through a financial and assets management consultant as the handling and processing firm to the fund for investment purpose, i was the closest person to him before his death and in the document it was stated that it is only through his foreign business partner that the Money can be processed and transferred to a foreign account, but no name was mentioned as his foreign business partner which is the reason why i am contacting you to stand as the foreign partner to enable have the fund processed on your name as the beneficiary and for onward investment.

Please for more details, I need your urgent response so that i can release more information's to you.

Regards
Mark Allen Macou.

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam