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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: "Geoffrey J.K Onyeama" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ministerofforeignaffairs2015@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 13:02:58 -0700
Subject: ACT SWIFTLY

Attn,

I'm Geoffrey Jideofor Kwusike Onyeama, the Chief Director of Finance Officer of
the Ministry of Finance. We wish to urgently confirm from you if actually you
know one Ms.Patricia Green who claims to be your business associate/partner.

Kindly reconfirm this application put in by Ms.Patricia Green-she
submitted the under listed bank account information
supposedly sent by you to receive the funds on your behalf.
The bank information she applied with are stated thus:

Account Name: Ms.Patricia Green
Bank name: Citi Bank NA
Bank address: #1230 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA
Account Number: 013439887655
Routing Number: 2771722
Swift Code: CITIUS30

The said Ms.Patricia Green has claimed to this office that you are
dead and have Instructed that all relevant documentation/Information
regarding your Payment/Transfer, be changed to her as the beneficiary
of the payment short-listed among the foreign beneficiaries entitled
to receive their payment.

For your Information, this Government has approved the total amount of
EIGHT MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS ONLY,
in your favor, prior to the Federal Government
instructions/mandate to offset all outstanding payments to the
various legal foreign beneficiaries around the world and your payment
file was affected. We need to confirm from you if
it's really true that you are dead as made mention by your Associate.
You should note that, if we do not hear from you, we automatically
assume that you are actually dead and the information
passed to us by Ms.Patricia Green is correct. Hence, you are hereby
requested to reply this Email immediately for
confirmation, before we proceed with this payment and for us to know
the true position of things with you so that we won't
make any mistakes/errors in remitting your out-standing payment to a
wrong person/account.

Lastly, you are advice to reply back this email and reconfirm the
details of this message if truly you're alive.

Full name....................................
Direct telephone number......................
Address......................................
Age..........................................
Occupation...................................
Country......................................

Your quick response will help us a lot.
Yours,
Sincerely,
Honorable Geoffrey J.K Onyeama

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