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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 fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
  • "first national bank" (not involved with lotteries)
• The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
  • "claim 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: peter wood <peter2007_wood@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:49:35 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Information


Dear Winner,

We are in receipt of your mail from our lottery board and we wish to inform you that all arrangments have been finally concluded to effect the transfer of your winnings to your account details once we finish the verification exercise.

Do note that we recently took delivery of the total winnings from our sponsors. .
The funds have been fully insured by this organisation and deposited with our paying bankers FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA (FNB),from where the funds will be transfered.

You are advised as a matter of urgency to provide us with the following informations so that we will proccess your clerance and issue same to our paying bankers for them to make the neccessary transfer to your account details.

NAME:..................................
ADDRESS:...............................
NATIONALITY:...........................
SEX:...................................
AGE:...................................
PHONE/MOBILE:..........................
FAX:...................................
OCCUPATION:............................
COMPANY:...............................
BATCH/WINNING NUMNBER:.................

Once we get this details, we will proccess your winnings and advise the bank to effect remittance

Congratulations once again.

Best regards.
Peter Wood
Claim Agent.


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Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam