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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: "Paul Rich" <paulrich701@msn.com>
Reply-To: paulrich1000@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:28:17 +0000
Subject: For Your Attention!!!!!!!!









>From the desk of:
Mr Paul Rich
Auditor General of
Natwest Bank Group
UK.
Dear Sir/ Madam,
I am Mr Paul Rich Auditor General of Natwest Bank Group UK. Natwest
Bank London. I am writing following an oppurtunity in my office
that will be of imense benefit to both of us.
In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of £20.5million
British Pounds Sterling (Twenty million five hundred thousand
British Pounds) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign
customers Late Mr. Morris Thompson an American who unfortunately
lost his life in the plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261
which crashed on January 31 2000, including his wife and only
daughter. You shall read more about the crash on visiting this
site.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/ and
http://www.nativefederation.org/history/people/mThompson.html
Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting
his next of kin or relatves to come over and claim his money
because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next
of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking
guidelines.
Unfortunately I learnt that his supposed next of kin being his only
daughter died along with him in the plane crash leaving nobody with
the knowledge of this fund behind for the claim. It is therefore
upon this discovery that I and two other officials in this
department now decided to make business with you and release the
money to you as the next of kin or beneficiary of the funds for
safety keeping and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming
for it and we don’t want this money to go back into Government
treasury as unclaimed bill.
The banking law and guidelines here stipulates that such money
remained after six years the money will be transferred into banking
treasury as unclaimed funds.
We agreed that 35% of this money will be for you as foreign
partner,
while the balance will be for me and my colleagues. I will visit
your country for the disbursement according to the percentages
indicated above once this money gets into your account. Please be
honest to me and trust is our watchword in this transaction.
Note this transaction is confidential and risk free. As soon as you
receive this mail you should contact me by return mail.
Please note that all necessary arrangement for the smooth release
of these funds to you has been finalised. We will discuss much in
details when I do receive your response.
Please if you are interested in this project contact me for further
directives.

Best regards

Mr Paul Rich


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