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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: "Thomas Gokem" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <thomas.gokem@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 07:39:39 +0200
Subject: Dearest Friend

Dearest Friend,

I am Thomas Gokem, from Republic of South Africa. I want to seek your
assistance after my discovery during auditing in my bank as I'm the
manager of Bill and Exchange at the Foreign Remittance Department of
BIDVEST CAPITAL BANK SOUTH AFRICA.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $17.300.000 million in
an account that belonged to one of our foreign customer (late). Upon
maturity, we sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got
no response.

After some months, we sent a reminder and finally discovered from his
contract employers, Hillary Construction (Pty) Limited, that our customer
died from an automobile accident. On further investigation, I found out
that he did not leave a will and all attempts to trace his next of kin
were fruitless.

I therefore made further investigation and discovered that the deceased
person did not declare any next of kin in all his official documents,
including his bank deposit paperwork.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I decided as the head of my
department to make this business proposal to you because he shares the
same last name as yours and release the money to you as the next of kin or
relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement, and share
it equally 50/50 after the transfer is made to your country / account
since nobody is coming for it and I don't want this money to go into the
Bank treasury as unclaimed bills.

We will conclude this operation within 21 banking days based on the amount
of co-operation you will contribute.

Thank you for your understanding as i await your urgent response to give
you more details don't forget to give me those information below before we
can go ahead in this business/project.

Your private telephone number
Your private E-mail address
Your profession
Your country
Your age

Thanks,

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