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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: "Mr.John Ofori" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrjohnofori@sify.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:53:22 -0500
Subject: Re: Work With Me

From Mr.John Ofori
HFC Bank
Accra-Ghana.

Attn:

It is my pleasure to seek for your assistance, and you should consider it very important. This is an opportunity that I can not live to miss. I am Mr.John Ofori, the officer in charge of Auditing and Accounting section of the HFC Bank, Accra in Ghana, and also a Relationship Account Officer to Al Gupta Kassim, a Lebanese.

He was a Seasoned Contractor with Government of the Republic of Ghana, who unfortunately died in the plane crash of Union Transport Africans Flight Boeing 727 in Benin republic on December 25th 2003.

Before his death on the 25th December 2003, Al Gupta Kassim, has a fixed deposit account with the bank and no other person knows about this account or any thing concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me that his supposed next of kin or inheritor(his wife) died along with him in the crash.

Since then I have made several inquiries to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to contact you. I contacted you to assist in repatriating the money left behind by my client before they get confiscated by the government. Consequently, Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives. I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valued at Twelve Million,Five Hundred Thousand, United States Dollars ($12.5Million) can be paid to you and then you and me can share the money in proportion of 60% to me and 40% to you.

I sincerely request your honest co-operation to enable us see this transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you and me from any breach of the law. while it will take only 14 working days the funds will be in your nominated Bank account. You should forward the following

information to me if you are in accord with my proposal.

YOUR FULL NAMES:
ADDRESS:
COUNTRY:
AGE:
OCCUPATION:
MOBILE PHONE:

Thanks and God bless You,
Mr.John Ofori.

Anti-fraud resources: