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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: "REV. FR TERRY ADAMS" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <terryadams@mail.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2018 09:47:36 -0800
Subject: Attn: Lucky winner

 
European Region Microsoft
2 Kingdom St, London W2 6BD, UK
 
                                            19th November,2018
 
Attn: Lucky winner
 
EUROPEAN REGION MICROSOFT LOTTERY PROMO
 
The management of Microsoft European Region wishes to congratulate and inform you that your email address has won $10million USD as it was among the winning emails in the just concluded Microsoft email ballot lottery in Europe. The selection process was done through a computerized selection system from a database of over 2,750,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the globe.
 
No ticket was sold or bought, but each individual play coupon representing an email ID was used. This promo is basically aimed at encouraging/promoting the use of internet for education, health, medical and scientific research within your community and across the globe. Hence, you are to contribute a reasonable part of your cash Award/Donation to the betterment of humanity.
 
As the head of European REGION MICROSOFT, I am pleased as stated above to inform you that your email address is one of the Five hundred [500] email addresses of individuals from different parts of the World designed to win $10million USD for their individual owners out of the 2,750,000 email addresses collected for this year promo conducted by European Region MICROSOFT as decided by MICROSOFT central management.
 
As agreed with appointed claim agents and paying banks in different continents of the world as grouped, each individual luck winner will be referred to where he or she is grouped for payment once promo wining certificate is issued therefore, provide the under-listed information of your person to prepare your wining certificate.
[1] Full names [2] Nationality, State of origin and address [3] Sex, Marital Status and Occupation [4] Scan copy of means of identification [5] Direct telephone number or Fax.
 
As the promo coordinator and head of European REGION MICROSOFT, I will monitor the process of releasing of cash prize to all lucky individual winners to allow transparency, prevent unscrupulous and over ambitious elements inside and outside MICROSOFT organization from seeing the program as an opportunity to defraud anybody thereby tarnishing the image of MICROSOFT and making mess of the good intention of the organization for the program hence, submit your personal information as requested above directly to me through my direct email address as given below.
 
Finally,this is not a scam or an attempt to defraud anybody as you may assume hence, do not hesitate to provide your personal information as listed above to prepare your wining certificate and refer you for payment where you are grouped to receive your cash prize from.
 
Once again congratulations.
 
Yours sincerely
 
For European Region Microsoft
Rev Fr. Terry Adams
Head European Region Microsoft
Tel:+442033224268
Official E-mail:coordinator@microsoft-lotto.com
Privates:terryadams@mail.co.uk or terryadams@europe.com

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