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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: Monalisa Woko <m.woko@btopenworld.com>
Reply-To: mona.woko@hotmail.fr
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 16:55:59 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: From: Miss Monalisa Woko




From: Miss Monalisa Woko


Dearest,

Good day. Please, permit me to inform you of my desire of asking you to be my guardian or foster parent and then help me out in what i am about to tell you. I know this may sound strange to you, receiving a mail from an unknown person, but my condition has forced me to do that.

I'm Miss Monalisa Woko 18 years old,the only daughter of Late Mr. & Mrs. John U.Woko. My father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant here in Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote d'Ivoire. He was poisoned to death by his brothers on one of their village meetings, my mother died when i was a baby.

Before the death of my father on March 2008 in a private hospital here in Abidjan, he secretly called me by his bed side and told me that he has the sum of Three million Five hundred thousand United State Dollars USD ($3.5million) deposited in a suspense account in one of the big banks here in Abidjan.

He then strongly advised me not to seek for assistance in the investment of the money from his lawyer nor any of his friend here, but to seek for a foreign partner from a country of my choice (outside our country Cote d'Ivoire) that will assist me in the wise investment of the money.I have since left the money in the bank with the view of my making use of it for investment purposes after my education career here. But as you may be already aware by now, our country (Cote d'Ivoire) is presently in political crisis. Rebels have already taken over the whole Northern part of the country and making efforts towards to capture the commercial center of the country, Abidjan, where i am now.

For this ugly development in this country, i have now decided to take quick actions and have this money transferred out of this country before it is too late for me in doing that. I now want to transfer it out and use it for investment purpose like real estate management or hotel management. Because of this i am honourably seeking your assistance in the following ways:

(1) To serve as a guardian to me and then assist me transfer the money into your bank account.

(2) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education and then settle there parmanently.

If you accept to stand as my guardian or foster parent to me, i need not discuss on any percentage with you as you have to see the whole money as yours and then assist me invest it. But if you still want a percentage, i am willing to offer you 20% of the total money as compensation for your assistance. Please tell me if you feel the percentage i offered is not ok by you.As soon as i receive your concrete assurance to assist me with my proposal and also your full contact address/phone number, i will then give the bank your contact information and then tell them to transfer the money into your account as i want to come over to stay with you parmanently.

The bank will then contact you and communicate with you on the transfer. You shall then be giving me information on when the transfer will be over. I shall also send my pictures to you and shall also need yours too. Please, no matter what your decision may turn out to be, please I plead with you to keep this secret for my safety, as i believe that those people that killed my Daddy are still after me.

I wait for your response

Best regards,
Miss Monalisa Woko

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