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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: "Lloyds Bank" (may be fake)
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2018 12:22:33 +0100
Subject: Important Information

Dear Customer,

We're committed to keeping you safe online by protecting your account, your personal details and your privacy. We have detected a slight error on your account from two different devices (a PC, Laptop, Tablet or Mobile). We have been trying to contact you. However, we are unable to reach you.

In-order to safeguard your account & to ensure that your service is not interrupt. We have temporarily suspended access to your accounts. Such as (Receive payments, Make payments or withdraw funds). Until account verification procedures as been confirm.

To continue banking-online with us, please complete our account verification process immediately. This should only take you a few minutes to complete and will help us in safeguarding your identity and your account personal information.

Login

Please note: Failure to comply with our account verification process may lead to temporary suspension of access to our online and telephone banking service.

How does it work?

If we detect any unusual activity on your accounts, we may decide that we want to confirm that it's really you. You must complete all steps otherwise you will not be able to use the online service until we have completed additional security checks.

Yours sincerely,
Lloyds Bank Security Team

Anti-fraud resources: