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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

• About the 419 (Advance Fee) scam
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• Phone numbers used by 419 scammers
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• Company names mentioned in 419 spam:
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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.

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:

• An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
• This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
  
  1. They don't notify winners by email.
  2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
  3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
  4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
  5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
  6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
  7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
• This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
  • +447011137953 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
• This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
  • www.info_contact_uk@yahoo.co.uk (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Fraud email example:

From: FREE LOTTO <www.info_contact_uk@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: 14 Nov 2006 18:38:29 +0200
Subject: FREELOTTO ( YOU HAVE WON)

Content-Type: text/plain

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit








THE FREE LOTTO COMPANY

105b WOODHILL ROAD

WOOLWICH

SE18 5HW

LONDON



Dear Winner,



We are pleased to announce you as one of the 10 lucky winners in the Free Lotto draw held on the 11th of Nov 2006. All 10 winning addresses

were randomly selected from a batch of 50,000,000 international emails. Your

email address emerged alongside 9 others as a category 2 winner in this

year's Annual Free Lotto Draw. Consequently, you have therefore been

approved for a total pay out of E1.5 000,000 (One Million, Five Hundred

Thousand Euro) only.

The following particulars are attached to your lotto payment order:

(i) Winning numbers: 37-13-43-85-67-11

(ii) Email ticket number: FL754/22/76

(iii) Lotto code number: FL09622UK

(iv) The file Ref number: FL/04/736207152/UK



Please contact the under listed operations manager as soon as possible

for the immediate release of your winnings:



Mr.Brian Doyle.

The Free lotto Company

TEL:+44-7011137953

E-mail:www.info_contact_uk@yahoo.co.uk



Please note the steps to claim your prize;

1.Please quote your Reference number in all correspondence with the

operations manager.

2.Winners must send their names,address,and telephone number and means

of identification (international passport or driver’s license)to the

operations manager to process immediate payment of their prize.

3.And due to the mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep

this award strictly from public notice until your claim has been

processed and your money remitted to your account. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming or unscrupulous acts by participants of this programme.



Once again on behalf of all our staff,



CONGRATULATIONS!!!



Sincerely,

Ronald Roes.

Announcer,

The FreeLotto Company

UK & Europe

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam