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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: " West" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <fwestben@yandex.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2017 18:18:12 -0400
Subject: For Our Benefit !!!

Dear Respectfully,

I write to seek for your assistance to help me achieve my aim of relocating my family out of Syria, because we are afraid not to be faced with problems a lot Syrian business people, who are now treated as commoners or refugees just because they traveled out of Syria without making good preparations oversea.

Here in our own case is quite different, we have gold stock and enough money that will bear all investment costs including buying a new house and setting up a good business in your country but presently we are faced with another challenge of sanctions placed on Syria banks, we will not be able to move our money through bank to bank transfer and resolved our money be bagged and flown to your country under cover paper from Red Cross/UN.

I am a Medical Doctor by profession, I have passion to establish a hospital though also interested in other commercial business establishments. We do not want to be treated as commoners, we want to be seen and addressed as investors when we arrive, we want you as our foreign helper that will stand as a partner to protect our interests in your country as investors and utilize our money on good investments in form of joint venture.

I will appreciate, you take this very seriously as we already plan to travel out of Syria possibly in the next one week time but before then we want to make sure our money is moved out to your country and entrusted on your care so you can have enough money to make proper preparations before we arrive after which we begin investments.

I assure you of great benefits from us if you are genuinely in acceptance to help, we are ready to give you good percentage and make you our permanent stake holder who will direct and manage the day to day affairs of the investments.

Honestly we do not want anything that will bring us back to Syria that is why we want to make sure our money is moved first then we will not suffer or lack when we arrive. Please I am waiting for your response, thereafter I let you know when to begin to make arrangement of good area where we will use part of the money to buy a living house and a good school where my children will continue with their academics

Yours faithfully,
Frank West

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