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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: turai sharifuddin <tu.sharifuddin@gmail.com>
Reply-To: turaishariffudin@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:25:07 +0200
Subject: can i trust you ?

My dearest one Sohail Qadri,

I am Miss Turai Sharifuddin,22 years old. the only child of late Mr.
Mohammed Sharifuddin.My father was a politician and also very wealthy
diamond merchant based in Sierra-leone,before he was poisoned to death
by his business associates in one of their outings.

My mother died very early in my life,but my father died in 2011.In a
private hospital in Sierra-leon,he secretly told me many things
including 45KG of Alluvia Gold Bar and a sum of US$6,400,000,00 which
he deposited as family valuable with a finance security firm in Accra
Ghana.He used my name as the only child for the next of kin to deposit
the funds.And because of attempts by members of my late father's
family to kill me,so they can inherit all my father's properties,i
snicked out of my country with the help of a priest to the Republic
of Ghana.

Please, I humbly need your assistance to help to claim the money from
the finance firm as my guardian and to make arrangement for me to
come over to your country to continue my education as soon as you
receive the money.Please,contact me to confirm your willingness and
sincerity to help me.¨Please,forward your details to me in your
response to my mail.

Yours Sincerely,
Miss.Turai Sharifuddin

Anti-fraud resources: