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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: "Chan Kosal" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrchankosal@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:49:52 +0700
Subject: Compliments: Reply Pls.

Dear Sir,

I am the Managing Director, Foreign Operations of FTB Asia.
In my department we discovered an abandoned sum which belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in the tsunami which happened in Indonesia.

Since we got information about his death, i have sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a month, we sent a reminder but unfortunately we learnt that his supposed next of kin died along side with him at the tsunami disaster leaving nobody behind to claim his funds.

We cannot release such funds unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our guidelines and laws.

Please, i will need to ask to present you as the next of kin so that this money can be transferred to you as his next of kin for us to share in the ratio of 60% for me and 40% for you.

If you are interested, please get back to me for further details.

Yours faithfully
Chan Kosal

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