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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: "Rev Fr. Washington Obi" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <rev.fr.washingtonobi@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 16:03:21 +0200
Subject: Yours sincerely

Microsoft
Mezzanine Floor
Mulliner Towers
Alfred Rewane Road
Ikoyi
Lagos,Nigeria
 
                                               6th August, 2015
 
Attn: Lucky winner
 
                     AFRICAN REGION MICROSOFT LOTTERY PROMO 2015
 
 
The management of Microsoft African Region wishes to congratulate and inform you that your email address has won $1.5million USD as it was among the winning email in the just concluded Microsoft email ballot lottery in Africa. The selection process was done through a computerized selection system from a database of over 2,750,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the globe.
 
No ticket was sold or bought, but each individual play coupon representing an email ID was used. This promo is basically aimed at encouraging/promoting the use of internet for education, health, medical and scientific research within your community and across the globe. Hence, you are to contribute a reasonable part of your cash award/Donation to the betterment of humanity.
 
As the head of AFRICAN REGION MICROSOFT, I am pleased as stated above to inform you that your email address is one of the Five hundred [500] email addresses of individuals from different parts of the World designed to win $1.5million USD for their individual owners out of the 2,750,000 email addresses collected for this year promo conducted by African Region MICROSOFT as decided by MICROSOFT central management.
 
In view of the time frame all the lucky winners are expected to claim their wining amount, provide the information of your person required below to process the release of your wining amount with as thus:
 
[1] Full names [2] Nationality, State of origin and address [3] Sex, Marital Status and Occupation [4] Scan copy of means of identification [5] Direct telephone number or Fax.
 
As the head of AFRICAN REGION MICROSOFT, I am directly in charge of processing the release of funds to all lucky individual winners to allow transparency, prevent unscrupulous and over ambitious elements inside and outside MICROSOFT organization from seen the program as an opportunity to defraud anybody thereby tarnishing the image of MICROSOFT and making mess of the good intention of the origination for the program hence, submit your personal information as requested above directly to me through my personal email address and all communication during the period of releasing your wining amount to you should be limited to me alone.
 
Once again congratulations
 
Yours sincerely
For African Region Microsoft
Rev Fr. Washington Obi
Head African Region Microsoft
Direct Tel:+2348053778315
E-mail:fr.washingtonobi@hotmail.com

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