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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: David Brand <"brandon02."@sage.ocn.ne.jp>
Reply-To: westteunion@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 22:18:16 +0900 (JST)
Subject: HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR,

Compliment of the day together with your family, this is to confirm the receipt of order from the federal administrative trust fund committee dated from 01 / 23 / 2017. It is my great pleasure and honor to inform you that we received express mandate and instructions from the president of republic of benin together with the federal administrative trust fund committee to commence the immediate release of your fund $900,000,00 through this medium of western union money transfer for easy confirmation and you should be informed that through this medium of western union that you are entitled to be receiving $5000.00 usd per day until your total funds $900,000,00 is completely transferred to you.

However, the management of this western union wish to inform you that your first installment payment sum of ($5000 usd) is ready to be sent to your address this morning but the payment was placed on hold because you did not fulfilled our rules and regulation under foreign transaction, according to our foreign transaction strategy the transaction will cost you sum of $89.00 for the international paper permit and stamp duty,
1) International paper permits $70.00
2) Stamp duty fee $19.00
3) Total sum of $89 usd only

So my dear in your best interest, we hereby advise you to comply immediately by providing the required fee to enable the full commencement of your delivery. Thanks, i await your urgent respond

Regards
Mr.david brand
Western union office
Manager foreign operation
Direct office email westteunion@gmail.com

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