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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

• About the 419 (Advance Fee) scam
• "Is that email a scam?" - Check it online here!
  
• Frequently asked Questions (419 FAQ)
• Phone numbers used by 419 scammers
  (+225 +229 +234 +27 +31 +32 +34 +44 other)
• Company names mentioned in 419 spam:
  1 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
• Support our efforts to stop scams!
  
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• What can you do when you receive 419 spam
  
  
• Spam archive, Daily index
  

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:

• The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
  • "fiduciary agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
• 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!

Fraud email example:

From: Laura Curtis <agent10010lauracurtis@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:05:24 +0100 (BST)
Subject: CLAIM



The National Lottery
P O Box 1010 Liverpool, L70 1NL
UNITED KINGDOM
(Customer Services)
Ref: UK/9420X2/68
Batch: 074/05/ZY369


Dear Mr/Mrs/miss....... Freda Meyerlich,

This is a millennium scientific computer game in which email addresses
were used. It is a promotional program aimed at encouraging Internet
users;therefore you do not need to buy ticket to enter for the game.
However, your email address was attached to ticket number 56475600545 188 with serial number 5368/02 . which eventually won the lottery in the first category of the draws.
This is from a total cash Price of £976,290. shared amongst the (5) lucky winners in this category i.e Match 5 plus bonus.
All participants for the online version were selected randomly from
World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from
over 100,000 unions, associations, and corporate bodies that are listed
online. This promotion takes place weekly.

Therefore, you have won a lottery jackpot Price awards of
£195,258.

We are working according to banking laws including Germany banks. You dont have to worry about the banking laws in German.

Have you contacted the bank? endeavour to always keep us updated on banking proceedings.

Best Regards
LAURA CURTIS
Fiduciary Agent,



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Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam