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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: "Edward Kong" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <kongedward23@yahoo.com.hk>
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2015 08:43:18 -0400
Subject: ''My purpose for contacting you now is this:''

Dear friend,
 
I am Mr. Edward Kong, Vice President and branch manager of ICBC (USA), Flushing Branch; Flushing, New York, USA. I am writing to obtain your consent to carry out a transaction that would be highly beneficial to both of us. I know you may be wondering why I am contacting you for this despite all the friends and relations that I have, but I decided to do this with an unknown person to avoid any form of blackmail in the future. Mr. Alvin Peter Kappelmann Jr. was an account holder with my bank. I was his account officer for 9 years prior to his death. He died during the World Trade Center bombing in September 11, 2001. Please confirm from this site:http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/2632.html
Since his death, the management of my bank has made a series of efforts to locate his family but all efforts were proved futile. I also performed research to find his family and was able to confirm that his mother, who was the only surviving member of the family, died at the hearing of his death. He was divorced prior to his death and due to this fact no one was able to claim the funds he deposited in my bank legally because there was no will attached to it. He had a secret dollar account with my bank worth the sum of $58,200,000.00 (Fifty Eight Million, Two Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) with an accrual interest agreement of 6.7%, which has been for in effect for the past 13 years.
My purpose for contacting you now is this: My bank during the last executive board meeting resolved that if by the end of next year and there is no beneficiary to the said account, the account will be confiscated and the funds sent to the bank treasury, this is where I am interested in and want you to come in: I want you to present as the Next of Kin/Beneficiary to this account. I have all the titled documents to confirm your claim and as the Vice President and Manager of this branch, it is in my power to carry out any form of verification on the beneficiary of the said funds and process the fund wire without any problem. Be informed that it is legal, 100% risk free as all the titled documents will be changed to your name, and the funds wired to any bank account you wish to have it wired to.
Please note that I am willing to let you have 50% of the total sum while you give me 50% when the fund is credited to your designated bank account. Also, note that I am willing to go extra mile to make this a success because if anything goes wrong, then we stand the risk of losing the funds and it will a shameful for trying to carry out such a transaction without completion. This is why I am contacting you so that we can put heads together and take care of this transaction within now and the next 15 days.
Kindly get back to me immediately this Email: <kongedward23@yahoo.com.hk> so that I will advice you on how this will be carried out.
 
Sincerely,
Mr. Edward Kong.

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