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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:

• 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/msn lottery inc" (no such lottery exists)
  • "yahoo/msn lottery" (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.
  • +447011137460 (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.
  • stevelarryprocessingunit@hotmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Fraud email example:

From: NOTIFICATION LETTER <jackrech2@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: <stevelarryprocessingunit@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:15:00 +0000
Subject: Attention winner



Attention winnerThis is to inform you that you have won a prize money of Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pound Sterlings(500.000.00) for the month of November 2007 Lottery promotion which is organized by YAHOO/MSN LOTTERY INC WINDOWS LIVE YAHOO/MSN MICROSOFT WINDOWS, collects all the email addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo and Hotmail we only select five people every Month as our winners through electronic balloting System without the winner applying,we congratulate you for being one of the people selected,You are to contact the events manager These are your identification numbers.Batch number.YM 09102XMReff number.YM 35447XMWinning number.YM0988However you will have to fill and submit this form to the events1.Full name2.Contact3.Age4.Telephone5.Sex6.Occupation7.State8.Country9.Your Reference and Batch number at the top of this mail(CONTACT EVENTS MANAGER)Name:Mr.Steve LarryPhone:+4470 111 374 60E-mail:stevelarryprocessingunit@hotmail.com
_________________________________________________________________
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Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam