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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: "Miss Maddalen" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <maddao6789@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2017 22:03:52 +0100
Subject: Please read it not junk/spam mail, It me Maddalen


Hi Dear,
Por favor hágamelo saber si no entiendo inglés y escribo espanol
Good day friend, I am Miss Maddalen who live in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. I am contacting for friendship with confident in business relationship; I have in my possession now 142 Kilograms of Gold Bars, Quality: 23 carat, purity 96% that I inherited from my late mother which I want to ship to your country, my intention is to sell the gold and invest the money in your country
I want you to stand by me as my tutor and ship this Gold Bars to your position for sell and we can setup an investment.
Note that I am writing you this email purely on the ground of trust because I don’t know you in person and we have not met before. I found you here and my mind convinced me that I can trust you.
I am will to offer you 7% from each kilos of the gold or negotiate how much percent you will take from each sell gold
Kindly reply to my private email ( na3er62@gmail.com )

I am waiting to hear from you to explain in details.
Miss Maddalen

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