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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

The so-called "419" scam is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money, such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc.

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.

Keep in mind that scammers DO NOT use their real names when defrauding people.
The criminals either abuse names of real people or companies or invent names or addresses.
Any real people or companies mentioned below have NO CONNECTION to the scammers!

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:

Fraud email example:

From: "FBI"<infofbiusag@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <infofbiusagovt@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:34:59 -0000
Subject: [SPAM] FBI NOTIFICATION!!!


This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached
along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted
mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details.

Content preview: ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONEY LAUNDRY CRIMES DIVISION FBI
HEADQUARTERS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION J.
EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING 935 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW WASHINGTON, D.C.
20535-0001 Website: www.fbi.gov [...]

Content analysis details: (7.10 points, 5 required)
UNDISC_RECIPS (1.8 points) Valid-looking To "undisclosed-recipients"
NO_REAL_NAME (1.0 points) From: does not include a real name
SUBJ_ALL_CAPS (1.1 points) Subject is all capitals
PLING_PLING (1.7 points) Subject has lots of exclamation marks
FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK (0.0 points) Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
UPPERCASE_25_50 (1.5 points) message body is 25-50% uppercase



Anti-fraud resources: