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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "United Bank for Africa" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <unitedbnkofafrica2015@outlook.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 19:17:49 -0700
Subject: [SNMG SPAM]: Payment Copy; Reconfirm Details

Hello Sir,

Please find and confirm attached payment instruction copy. We have wired the payment to your account twice and it returned back to us. Please confirm from the attached instruction if there are missing figures in account details and make corrections were necessary so we can repeat payment again tomorrow morning.

Looking forward to your anticipated reply for which my thanks in advance, I meanwhile remain,

Very respectfully Yours.

Mrs. Catherine Johnson
Accounts Department

Anti-fraud resources: