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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: "Mrs Margaret Thompson" <hinoya.@athena.ocn.ne.jp>
Reply-To: "Mrs Margaret Thompson" <revdonald@yandex.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2016 20:10:34 +0900 (JST)
Subject: URGENT RESPONSE NEEDED

Dear Friend,

Greetings. I am Mrs Margaret Thompson, 87 Years old woman and the wife of Late Dr. Ernest Thompson who died in a Plane crash in September 1998 GMT 14:22 UK while they were flying from New York to Geneva.

After the death of my husband I managed our investments but now I am old and weak and have decided to spend the rest of my life with my family and loved ones whom I never had time for during the course of my busy business life. Before the death of my husband we had plans to use the last days of our lives to donate half of what we have worked for to the less privilege and charity homes but its so unfortunate that my husband is not alive today to witness this with me. I have decided to do this
philanthropic work in accordance with the last will of my Husband. I am happy that i have succeeded in donating almost half of our assets to several charity homes and to some of the less privilege in different countries.

Furthermore we also agreed to render anonymous support to an individual we have never meet before in life due to the fact when we were still young in life we receive an anonymous help from an individual we did not know and have not being able to know or meet again till date, the impact from the assistance we got from such gesture made us successful and so want to do same. I am sorry to inform you that you will never have the chance to know me because I have just concluded the assignment which my husband and I have agreed upon before his sudden death and you happened to be the beneficiary of our last WILL, irrespective of your previous financial status, hence I need you to do us a favor by accepting our offer and also promise to use the funds to help the poor and less privileged.

When i visited Africa to sale off our estate and investment on behalf of my late husband, I realized the total sum of $850,000 USD which i instructed the bank to credit in an ATM card that will allow cash withdrawal from any ATM Machine. Due to the promise to my late husband to make this donation anonymous, i contacted a Priest by name Fr. Daniel Donald to keep the ATM card until my appointed beneficiary makes contact to collect it.

Kindly contact Rev. Fr. Daniel Donald through his ( revdonald@yandex.com ) and telephone ( +229-68849978 ) tell him that you got the Authorization Letter from me. The security code that the priest will use to identify you is ( Question : What for ? Answer: World Peace ). The payment has been programmed by me with a secret code which is known by only me so it will only allow you daily withdrawal from any ATM Machine in the world Except Africa for security of the funds.


Reconfirm this information for your card delivery -- ( Full Names, Delivery address; Telephone/mobile number , copy of identification ) I do not want you to thank me or my husband all we expect of you is to invest wisely and do the same good to someone’s life someday as by rendering selfless service is the only way this world would become a better place.

Note that I will no longer be reading my emails or surfing the internet as I have retired completely from the outside world to my ranch, at this moment I have nothing to do with cars, emails and other luxuries, all further correspondence should be forwarded to Rev. Fr. Daniel Donald for the delivery of your ATM card to you. I have given him all information you would need as i will be departing in the next hour so get in touch with him now.Have a wonderful day and pass on the blessing to others.

Yours Faithfully,
Mrs. Margaret Thompson.

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