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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:
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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:

• The following fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
  • "british lottery international" (no such lottery exists)
• 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.
  • +447024022241 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)

Fraud email example:

From: UK LOTTERY <contactlotteryclaimsagent02@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 19:25:31 +0100 (BST)
Subject: FILL THE PROCESSING FORM


BRITISH LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL Headquarters: 82 VICTORIA STREET VICTORIA LONDON SW1UK




UK LOTTERY

CLAIMS PROCESSING DEPARTMENT














Congratulations Lucky Winner,


Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts users all over the regions of the
world.

The selection was made through a computer draw system attaching personalised e-mail addresses to ticket numbers.

Uksweepstakelotto is now the largest Internet lottery company and in an effort to make sure that Goggle Search engine remains the most widely used program, Goggle and AOL ran an e-mail beta test for uksweepstakelotto for an electronic draw for random e-mail users online.

Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 542017523430 with BATCH:FR/45-300-06, and drew the lucky numbers 9-21-17-39-23-13(20) which subsequently won you £1,500,000(One Million Five Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterling ) as one of the 10 jackpot winners in this draw.


CERTIFICATE OF PRIZE CLAIM (Receipt Official Notification Letter)
[ REF:UKL/TFR/9900034943/JPT]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[FULL NAME].....................................................

[FULL MAILING ADDRESS]................................

[COUNTRY/ REGION].........................................

[STATE/ PROVINCE]..........................................


[AGE]................................................................

[SEX]................................................................

[MARITAL STATUS]..........................................

[OCCUPATION].................................................

[CURRENT EMAIL]...........................................

[TEL/FAX]........................................................


Regards,
MRS. MARY JAMES
+447024022241


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Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam