419 scam: "Kwesi Mensah" <mensahkwesi62@yahoo.com> Attn: Beneficiary, regarding your payment

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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:

This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "swift card payment center" (this phrase is often used in the ATM card payment scam)
- "(ecowas)" (the name of a person or institution often appearing in 419 scams)
- "simondornoo@fastservice.com" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.

Fraud email example:

From: "Kwesi Mensah" <mensahkwesi62@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: mensahkwesi13@yahoo.fr
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:16:43 +0300 (AST)
Subject: Attn: Beneficiary, regarding your payment

Attn: Beneficiary, regarding your payment,

your contact email was given to this office in respect of your total
inherited / contract sum owed to you which you have failed to claim
because of either non-compliance of official processes or because of your
unbelief of the reality of your genuine payment.

we wish to bring to you the solution to this problem. right now we have
arranged your payment through our swift card payment centers, that is the
latest instruction from economic community of west African states (ECOWAS)
this card center will send to you an ATM Debit Card which you will use to
withdraw your money in any ATM machine in any part of the world, so if you
like to receive your fund in this way please contact us immediately.

Contact Person: Dr. Simon Dornoo
Position: Managing Director
Bank Name: Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB)
Direct Tel: + 233-265-171-261
Direct Email: SimonDornoo@fastservice.com

We have been mandated by the (ECOWAS) parliament to issue out the initial
approved sum (US$3.5 Million) for this fiscal year 2010. Also for your
information, you have to stop any further communication with any other
person (s) or office(s) to avoid any glitch in receiving your payment.

Note that because of impostors, we hereby issued you our code of conduct,
which is (ATM-822) so you have to indicate this code when contacting the
card center by using it as your subject.

We wait for your expedite response.

Yours in service,

Mr. Kwesi Mensah.
International Settlement Dept.
Accra Ghana.

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam