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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: Cynthia Adams <cccadams@ymail.com>
Reply-To: cynthiadams01@yahoo.fr
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 19:39:45 +0800 (SGT)
Subject: Awaiting To Hear From You


Hello My Dear,

May the Grace of Almighty God be with you and your family, I am writing this message to inform you about my present condition and I will be happy if I could receive assistance from you; firstly i hope that this mail reaches you in good condition of health, My name is Miss Cynthia Adams; I am an adopted Daughter of late Dr. Obed William Adams a well known Coco merchant (business man) in Ivory Coast, who died along side with his wife on the 1st June 2011, at the age of 69.

At the moment we have finalized with the funeral ceremony of my late father, presently our family has turned their back on me because I was adopted against their Wish, this is just because they are jealous of me and they doesn’t want me to be a part of their family anymore and I do not wish to go back to the Warfare (Motherless Babies Home) where my late parents adopted me, so I need to do something to help myself.

Because of the confidence my late father had in me before his death, he told me that he has a sum of Six Million United States Dollars ($6,000.000.00) deposited in a bank here in his name and he made me to understand that he used me as his next of kin, so all the legal documents are with me without the knowledge of any other person, so I wish to leave this country with the fund for investment thereof over there in your country, which is the mean reason why i am contacting you to assist me to move the fund out from this country as I am still a little girl of no financial experience.

If you assist me to get this fund out from this country (Ivory Coast) I will offer you 15% of the total sum as compensation for effort input after the successful transfer of this fund before we start the investment thereof over there in your country again these are the areas I will need your assistance: (a) To assist me in retrieving this money from the bank here. (b) To serve as the guardian of this fund over there in your country. (c) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education and to secure a residential permit in your country because I will be living permanently over there.
.

Waiting to hear from you soon

Yours Sincerely
Miss Cynthia Adams



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