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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: "UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION UNIT," (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrskaren_thomas@yahoo.com.hk>
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 01:12:32 +0700
Subject: RE: COMPENSATION OF US$1,000.000.00

UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION UNIT,
IN AFFILIATION WITH WORLD BANK.
Permanent Mission of Thailand to the United Nations
351 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022
Our Ref: UN/TH/069011


RE: COMPENSATION OF US$1,000.000.00

How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family? You may not understand why this mail came to you. We have been having a meeting for the past 3 months which ended yesterday with the secretary to the UNITED NATION. This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$1,000.000.00 each and you have to indicate how much you lost in the hand of scammers.

This includes every foreign contractors, Inheritance,Dating and Lottery payment that have not received their Lottery/Inheritance payment, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international Lottery payment that failed due to Government problems etc. We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed.

You are advised to contact Mrs. Karen Thomas, who is in charge of your payment through our paying center in Asia as he is our representative in Thailand, contact her immediately for your compensation of US$1,000.000.00. she will be sending your ATM CARD value $1,000.000.00 for your compensation payment from the United Nation Office.

Therefore, you should send her your full Name,telephone number and your correct home address, Contact Mrs. Karen Thomas immediately for your compensation payment.

Person to Contact: Mrs. Karen Thomas
Email: mrskaren_thomas@yahoo.com.hk

Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon as you receive your compensation funds don’t neglect this I advice you.

You are advice to go through our website http://www.un.org/sg/
United Nations, Making the world a better place.

Regards,

Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General

Anti-fraud resources: