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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: MR ZAKI IMRAN <mrzaki.imran1414@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:55:38 GMT
Subject: I NEED YOUR HELP FOR THIS TRANSFER CONFIDENTIAL PLEASE.

 
Dear Partner,
 
Thank you for reading my mail. I am contacting you concerning a customer and an investment placed under our banks management years ago, I contacted you independently of my investigation and no one is informed of this communication and I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you and me and the family in future.
 
My name is Mr Zaki Imran, I am the Auditing and Accounting Manager with Bank of Africa Ouagadougou Burkina Faso . In my department i discovered an abandoned sum of (US$10M DOLLARS) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer (MR. RICHARD BURSON from Florida, U.S.A) who died along with his entire family on November 1999 in a plane crash.
 
There is no person that is coming for the money that i why i am contacting you to stand for the claim of the money into your bank account. By all means you will be acting like his business partner to make claim of the money to your bank account, i promise you that i will direct you on how this transfer will go sucessfully if only you can abide to my instruction.
 
And after then will shall share in ratio of 40% for you and 50% for me while 10% for expenses Should you please contact me urgently so we can commence all arrangements and I Will give you more information on how we would handle this project successfully and also you will abide to my instruction.
Please treat this business with almost confidentiality and send me the Following:
 
(1.)Your full name...
(2)Your address...
(3)Your country..
(4) Your age...
(5)Your occupation.......
(6)Your Private Phone number,
 
I will send you my details of this transaction as soon as i hear from you thanks, trusting to hear from you immediately with your contact information,
My regards.
 
Mr Zaki Imran
 

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