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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: gracewilliam@hotmail.fr
Date: Sat, 29 May 2010 15:38:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: how are you ???


attention : Dearest ,
I make this appeal with the understanding that any
facts or opinion expressed by me are giving in confidence and solely for
your personal information and use.I am Mrs. Grace Williams, the manager of
bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department of my Bank. In my
department I discovered an abandoned sum of (Eight Million, Five Hundred
Thousand US  Dollars) with account number 0101-001-73914682-28 that
belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along with his wife and only daughter in a plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight number 261 which crashed on 31 January, 2000. You shall read more about the crash on visiting this site http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/  the owner of this account is Mr. Morris Thompson an American and great industrialist and a resident of Alaska.It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and for our bank to release the money to you.
You have to follow the instruction which I will send to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement sincn nobody is coming for it and I don't want this money to go into our bank treasury as unclaimed bill.In appreciation of your assistance, I am offering you 35 percent of the total sum. 5percent for contingencies cost of transfer/other charges likely to be incurred during the course of transaction, while the remaining 60percent is for me.Upon receipt of  your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application which you will complete and forward to our bank asking for this money to be paid to you as the next  of kin to Mr. Morris Thomson. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.You should contact immediately as soon as you receive this mail
 Please do not hesitate to contact me immediatel should you consider my urgent

request.
 Yours Faithfully,
Dr Grace William



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