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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: "RIVER CITY" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <rivercityinvestbank@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2016 14:14:34 -0800
Subject: RE: DID YOU AUTHORIZE FOR YOUR BANK A/C CHANGE?/REPLY!

MY DEAR,
How is your health today?
We have been contacted by MR ANDY MERCHANT in which he has informed us about your illness and the instruction you gave to him to act on your behalf as regards to the claims of your fund, it is in this respect that we decided to contact you first to find out if you are actually in the hospital and to verify if his claims that you have authorized him to receive the fund on your behalf is true as we don’t want to conclude on hearing from him alone, in this respect, if you are out of hospital, it is very important that you should contact us to confirm that you have authorized him to claim the fund on your behalf.
Below are the Bank information(s) that he has sent to us for the purpose of wiring the fund to him, thus:-
BANK NAME: CITIZENS STATE BANK
BANK ADDRESS: CEDAR AVENUE, SOUTH PITTSBURG TENNESSEEE 37380 USA
A/C NO: 57011457
A/C NAME: ANDY C MERCHANT
ROUTIING NO: 064101660
NOTE: If we don’t hear from you within the next 48 hours, we will not have any other option than to proceed with his payment request as he is not aware that we have already contacted you now for this confirmation, therefore, we shall be looking forward to your prompt reply to this mail
Thanks for your understanding
Yours in banking service
MS MELISSA STADLER
(Commercial banking dept)
RIVER-CITY INVESTMENT BANK

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