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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
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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.
• The following fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
  • "yahoo lottery inc" (no such lottery exists)
• The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
  • "claim agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
  • "hundred thousand us dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
  • "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
• 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 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.
  • paymentoffice926@yahoo.com.cn (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Fraud email example:

From: BETA LOTTERY 2007 <betalot2007@yahoo.com.hk>
Date: 11 Nov 2007 08:49:16 +0100
Subject: PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM

Content-Type: text/plain

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit




YAHOO BETA LOTTERY AWARD 2007



This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS ($300,000.00) for the YEAR 2007 Lottery promotion which is was organized by YAHOO LOTTERY INC for the introduction of the new YAHOO BETA MAIL which all YAHOO users are required to switch onto.

YAHOO! & MICROSOFT WINDOWS, arrange and gather all the e-mail addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to All email Address, and others we only select Nine (9) candidates per annually as our winners through Electronic Balloting System (EBS) without the candidate applying, we congratulate you for being one of the people selected.







PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM







You are to contact our Claim Agent to claim your price with your winning number as directed.

Yahoo Beta Lottery Prize must be claimed not later than 14 days from date of Draw Notification.

Note: Any prize not claimed within this period (14 days) will be forfeited.



These are your identification numbers:

Batch number.....................YBM-EBS-360AF

Winning number...............YBM-EBS-718AF



These numbers above fall within the agent Location file, you are requested to contact your Agent and send your winning Numbers and Personal Information to him;

Mr Peter Liu (CLAIM AGENT) at his email:

E-mail: paymentoffice926@yahoo.com.cn



You are therefore advised to send the following information to him to facilitate and process the transfer of your fund with the appointed paying bank.



Send your Identification Numbers/Your Personal Information to him immediately:

Personal Information

Full name..................

Country....................

Contact Address...........

Telephone Number.........

Occupation..................

Age.........................



Congratulations once again.



Yours in service,



YAHOO!!!!!!!

We hope you're enjoying your new Yahoo! Mail account.

Now take the next step and claim your money and say thanks to Yahoo!

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam