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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: John Scott <john.scott67@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: <davidjohnscott2@yahoo.pt>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2015 16:31:56 +0000
Subject: URGENT REPLY BACK!




GOOD NEWS
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS SUCCESS I NEED
YOUR CO-OPERATION IN THIS TRANSACTION!
.....................................................................................

UBS AG
100 Liverpool Street
London EC2M 2RH
United Kingdom,


Hello!


I
am a consultant, working with UBS AG Bank. I will be happy to execute
this deal with you if you have a corporate or personal Bank Account and
if you are capable of handling issues as a TOP SECRET. I therefore need a
strong Assurance that you will never let me down, when I transfer this
money to your account.

Thus during one of our periodic auditing I
discovered a dormant account with holding balance of US$ 230,000.000.00
{ Two Hundred and Thirty Million US Dollars only}, Sometimes a person
will open a bank account, deposit money in it, and then will disappear
into the tin air.

Banks are not always able to find out what has
become of these silent customers, or to know whether they should follow
up on requests from people who claim to be heirs to the accounts. The
main problem is that the customer resides abroad and, due to bank
secrecy and code of conduct, the bank cannot publish notices in the
international press to locate the depositaries. This has led the
majority of Swiss banks to refrain from opening small-deposit accounts
for foreign customers; for fear that they will forget that the account
exists.

It has happened in the past, however, such customers pass
away and their heirs can neither prove the death, nor their heir ship.
This was a frequent occurrence during the wartime periods, also now that
have many reports of environmental hazards with many unknown casualties
and the banks have now set up a simple, rapid resolution procedure
operating to their customers' advantage. Dormant assets are defined as
any assets deposited with a bank (i.e. an account, a custody account or a
safety-deposit box) for which there has been no contact with the
customer in the bank's files for the last ten years or more.

I am
constrained to issue more details about this business transaction until
your response is received. If you know that you will be capable to
handle large or small amount on trust and can to keep all matters secret
and ready to take 45% of any amount I transfer to your account from
the dormant account and I will take 55%, send your account
information's by return mail. Tell me more about yourself, while I
look forward to receive the above information.

I want to
re-assure you that this business is risk free and you can send an empty
account to receive the funds, provided that the account is capable to
receive incoming funds.

Look forward to discuss this opportunity
further with you in detail. Please email me back on this mail address:
(davidjohnscott1@yahoo.com) Or provide me with your phone number for
discussion of this transaction in further details.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Warmest Regards,

Mr. David J. Scott.


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