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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: Austin <carojohnson9@gmail.com>
Reply-To: abain19411@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2017 14:03:07 +0100
Subject: Greeting

Greetings.

Before I introduce myself, I wish to inform you that this letter is
not a hoax mail and I urge you to treat it serious. We want to
transfer to overseas account ($10,000.000.00) Ten million US DOLLARS
from a prime Bank here. I want to ask you, If you are not capable to
quietly look for a reliable and honest person who will be capable and
fit to provide either an existing bank account or to set up a new Bank
a/c immediately to receive this money, even an empty a/c can serve to
receive this money, as long as you will remain honest to me till the
end for this important business trusting in you and believing in God
that you will never let me down either now or in future I am Mr.
Austin Bain, presently promoted to Auditor General in one of the banks
here.

During the course of our auditing last week, I discovered a floating
fund in an account opened in the bank in 2010 and since 2015 nobody
has operated on this account again, after going through some old files
in the records I discovered that the owner of the account died without
a [Heir/WILL] hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this
money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing.

The owner of this account is Mr. Sam Lathan an American and a great
industrialist and a resident of Alaska State, who unfortunately lost
his life in the Auto crash in Alaska, which crashed on January 31
2012, including his wife and only daughter leaving nobody to claim the
money. No other person knows about this account or anything concerning
it, the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved
to me as well that the account is a secret account.

The total amount involved is $10,000.000.00) Ten million US DOLLARS]
and we wish to transfer this money into a safe foreigners account
abroad. But I don't know any foreigner; I am only contacting you as a
foreigner because this money cannot be approved to a local person
here, but to a foreigner who has information about the account, which
I shall give to you upon your positive response.

I am revealing this to you with believe in God that you will never let
me down in this business, you are the first and the only person that I
am contacting for this business, so please reply urgently so that I
will inform you the next step to take urgently. I need your strong
assurance that you will never let us down, me and a key bank official
who is deeply involved with me in this business.

I guarantee you that this transaction will be executed under a
legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the
law. The bank official will destroy all documents of the transaction
immediately you receive this money leaving no trace to any place. I
will use my position and influence to obtain all legal approvals for
onward transfer of this money to your account with appropriate
clearance from the relevant ministries and foreign exchange
departments At the conclusion of this business, you will be given 30%
of the total amount, 70% will be for us.

PLEASE, TREAT THIS PROPOSAL AS TOP SECRET.

Best Regards
Mr. Austin,

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