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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: Maria Paxton <heisei@lemon.plala.or.jp>
Reply-To: mariapaxton787@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2023 22:54:37 +0900
Subject: CAN I TRUST YOU ?


--
Greetings, Please let this not sound strange to you because I am not asking you for money, for my only surviving lawyer who would have done this, died early last year. I got your email address from your country's guest book. In function of your good profile, I want to solicit your assistance in the discharge of my Will. I am mrs. Maria Paxton, from London and am aged 73 years suffering from endometrial cancer. Please, I want you to help me create a charitable project with the money that I inherited from my deceased husband.
No money is required from you to carry on with this project because it is my heart desire to make a generous gift to you to work for a charity in your country. my only paramount concern here is whether I can trust you because this generation is filled with greedy and fraudulent people. I will give you more details as soon as I hear from you.
Mrs.Maria Paxton

Anti-fraud resources: