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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: "John Peterson" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <john_peterson65@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2016 06:52:05 -0700
Subject: Hello Sir/Ma, from Mr.John Peterson? Get back to me Asap.

WORLD DEBT RECOVERY COMMITTEE
170 FENCHURCH STREET LONDON, UK.


UNCLAIMED FUND NOTIFICATION.


Hello Sir/Ma,

I am Mr John Peterson of the newly inaugurated World Debt Recovery committee (WDRC). My committee has a mandate to recover unpaid debts associated with Lottery fund, inheritance fund, loans and grants etc ranging from $1M-$20M owed to various beneficiaries and companies across the globe (Asia, Europe, USA, Africa, and Australia) and submit the list of the unpaid beneficiaries/companies to the appointed official paying Bank for immediate payment of the fund.

In the course of our investigation, your email address were submitted on my office among the first fifteen individuals to be compensated with the sum of USD$1.5M each. However, they were two American and one UK Attorney who came to my office two days ago and they introduced themselves as (Mr. Tim Parker, Mr. Roland Gulf, both from America ), and accompanied with them was a UK Attorney with the name (Barrister Lambert Cole). And Miss Helen Rose. Really these men were unexpected by me because their visit was impromptu. I had to ask them why they came to see me in person and they said that they were here to collect the compensation/ Inheritance Bill Sum which rightfully belongs to you on your behalf that you died in a plane crash few weeks ago as such your fund should be paid to them. They also submitted Bank account with Bank of America for the transfer of the fund .

Finally, I told them to come back in ten days time and they promised to come back. As the newly inaugurated World Debt Recovery committee, I was supposed to Release these Funds to them but I refused to do so because I wanted to hear/confirm from you first, due to the Nature of my job, I will not want to make any mistake in releasing these funds to anyone except you whom is the recognized confide beneficiary to this Fund. If you are still alive kindly clarify us on this issue before we make this Payment to these foreigners whom came on your behalf.

Note: We have already sent this massage through our official email and it returned back. I decided to use my private email to send it again to be sure.

To avoid undue delay or paying the fund to wrong people, I have decided to contact you for confirmation. If I fail to hear from you after 72 hours, it will be assumed that what those people said is true and the fund will be paid to them without further delay.


Yours Sincerely,
Mr John Peterson.

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