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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: Dr Patrick Brown <harmeendesign.com@gmail.com>
Reply-To: drpatrickbrown10@outlook.com
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:06:27 +0100
Subject: URGENT REPLY

Hello,

Compliments of the day to you. I hope your doing well and that this letter
meets you and your family in good health.

On my honor, I want to introduce myself, my name is Dr. Patrick Brown, I
am the chairman of Contract Tender Board/Award Committee of West African
Health Support Organization (WAHSO) we have our headquarters in Accra Ghana
from where I operates but our sub and area offices are in all member states
of the organization. This organization is an arm of the Economic
Communities of West African States (ECOWAS). It is the largest single
organization operating here in West African sub-region with 15 member
states and my organization sees about health support related matters in the
whole region.

In 2009 there was an outbreak of cerebral meningitis in many member states
of our region including Mali, Republic of Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea
Bissau and Cape Verde. The outbreak of this disease and its rapid spread
was alarming and a disaster so my organization was mandated by the regional
executive body to immediately take every necessary action to bring the
situation under control. We swung into action in collaboration with World
Health Organization (WHO). We awarded contracts to various drug
manufactures and large drug distributing companies both in South Africa,
Europe and Asia for supply of drugs and related services for both cure and
prevention of the disease from spreading to other states.

The contract entered with those companies was initially meant to last for
1yr but unfortunately we found out before the end of the contract that we
grossly underestimated the situation at hand then the contract was extended
for more 1 yr and more companies were also engaged in the war against the
disease and its spread which ended in early 2013.

During the deliberations and the processing of the contracts, myself and
members of my committee connived and inflated the value of the contract to
the tune of USD55 million . The contract has been completed long before now
and full payments made to all the suppliers of both drugs and services used
in the fight against the disease while the disease itself has been declared
flushed in the areas.

The balance of the inflated amount has been floating in the balance sheet
of the agency's account and recently the bank manager wrote and required me
to forward account where the remaining of the balance will be paid to. It
is on this regard that I am inviting you to come and partner with us so we
can move this fund out of Africa for our collective interest.

What we need is for you to provide a durable account that we would use to
receive this money for the benefit of all of us. We made up this mark up in
order take care of our retirement benefits because some of us in this
committee are due for retirement soon and we believe this will help in no
small measure to effect great change in our generations coupled with the
fact that the project was a multi-million dollar one so it provided a very
unique and great opportunity for us all.

If you will want to partner with us as a businessman you will know that you
must be able to provide an account that will have the capacity to contain
the volume of money involved and then we can negotiate with you the
protocol and sharing formula of the money. We are matured men in the
highest cadres of our careers and would want to protect both our
reputation which we have worked hard over the years to build, our family
names, careers and grown up children we have, so we would want you to take
this transaction serious and give it it's desired attention if you accepts
this partnership. Please confirm the receipt of this message and let us
know your position immediately.

Thanks
Regards,

Dr.Patrick Brown.

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