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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: "Prize Promotion Dept." (may be fake)
Reply-To: <writeleon.becker@live.nl>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 18:06:23 +0200
Subject: AUTHORIZED: THE NEW DEAL

Ref No: RGM/1313-101
Batch Number: NL 80 OS 94144448
Amount Won: $2,500,000.00

Dear Internet User

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Internet Promotional Draws. This is a reward program for the patronage of internet services and all email addresses entered for this promotional draws were randomly selected from an internet resource database of of registered software and domain users.

Your email address was selected in the Category "A" with Reference Number RGM/1313-101, and this qualifies you to be the recipient of the grand prize award sum of $2,500,000 (Two million, five hundred thousand dollars). The payout of this cash prize to you will be subject to the final validations and satisfactory report that you are the bonafide owner of the winning email address.

In line with the governing rules of claim, you are required to establish contact with your designated claims agent via email or telephone with the particulars below:

Name: Mr. Leon Becker
Phone: +31 61 671 0747
Email: writeleon.becker@live.nl


You are advised to call the Claims agent for confirmation or provide the following information for processing the payment of your cash award.

DATA PROFILE
Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:
Winning Reference Number:

Failure to complete the claims of your cash prize after 14 days of this notice will result in the revision of award. Hence, you should commence your claims process immediately, by contacting the claims agent (Mr. Leon Becker) who would be guiding you through the Claims process.

Congratulations on your Winning Prize and we look forward to completing your payout soon.

Yours Faithfully,

Diane Bailey
Promotions Co-ordinator


Anti-fraud resources: