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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: "SHELL UK" <info@shell.com>
Reply-To: shell.uk@yandex.com
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2016 09:46:32 -0700
Subject: YOU ARE A WINNER!!

Congratulations!!!

We are happy to announce to you the draw (#294) of the SHELL UK INTERNATIONAL ONLINE LOTTERY PROGRAM 2016. The SHELL online draws was conducted this week by a random selection of email addresses from an exclusive list of 99,951,755 E-mail addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the internet. SHELL UK is giving out $50,000,000 to 100 lucky winners in which your email address was luckily selected to be one our Cash Prize winners of $2,000,000.00.

Your email address was attached to Ticket number OM9887, With Serial number 2130110. You have been approved for payment sum of $2,000,000.00 credited to file Ref NO: SA/JA7754, Raffle Number: NJQ919617 and Batch No. SA94084. Kindly send the below personal details to me immediately to enable me process your Cash Prize pay-out immediately:

1] Full Name:
2] Full Address:
3] Date Of Birth:
3] Phone Number:
4] Occupation:

Kindly send the above details to enable process your cash pay-out immediately. You are warned to keep your winning information to yourself until you receive your fund to avoid double claim.

Thank you.

Sincerely Yours,
Mr Laurence Thomas
Shell Lottery Program Coordinator
Shell Centre
London SE1 7NA.
United Kingdom
Tel: +44-7751598419
Fax: +44-7043083020
Alternative Email: laumaxthomas@yandex.com

Anti-fraud resources: