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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
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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:

• 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.
  • +447045789796 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)

Fraud email example:

From: (sent from abused email account)
Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:53:07 +0000
Subject: PAYMENT OF PRIZE / CLAIMS

This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of Two Hundred & Fifty Thousand Great Britain Pounds (GBP 250,000.00) in our annual email award winning promotion which was organized by YAHOO AWARDS & WINDOWS LIVE.YAHOO collects all the email addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo and Hotmail and few from other e-mail service providers. Ten people are selected yearly to benefit from this promotion and you areone of the Selected Winners.


PAYMENT OF PRIZE / CLAIMS

Winners shall be paid in accordance with their Settlement Centers.Yahoo & Windows Live monthly Prize Award must be claimed not later than 30 days from date of Draw Notification.Any prize not claimed within this period will be forfeited and returned to its source as
unclaimed.Stated below are your identification numbers: BATCH
NUMBER: MFI/06/APA-43658
REFERENCE NUMBER: 2007234522
PIN: 1207

You are requested to contact our co-ordinator in Manchester and send your winning identification numbers to him:Co-ordinator's Name: Mr. Druv Matindale E-Mail: uk.coordinator.uk01@live.com Tel: +44 70457 89796 Fax: +448719003714 You are advised to send the following information to our co-ordinator to facilitate the release of your fund to you.

Name/Address.../Telephone Number../Occupation. / Sex.Date of Birth/Age

Congratulations!! once again.Yours in service,

Mrs. Grace Sanders

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam