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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: "Frank Diallo" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <frankdiallo26@yahoo.com.hk>
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 04:26:22 +0100
Subject: Hello Dearest One,

 
Hello Dearest One,
 
Greetings to you and every members of your family,
 
I and my mother write to seek for your assistance with my family inheritance, we got your contact information when we where looking for a God-fearing, honest and trustworthy person who will help us receive our consignment boxes as our foreign partner.
 
First and foremost I want to introduce myself to you. My name is Frank Diallo and my mother is Rose Diallo, we are from Sierra-Leone, our consignment boxes contains 28 million United States dollars, the consignments are presently in the United States of America. The consignment got to the state through the help of a U.N diplomat, the fact is that the Diplomat is supposed to have delivered this consignment to my late foreign partner called Mr. Gerald Murphy in the USA .
 
The week the Diplomat is suppose to deliver the consignment boxes to one Mr. Gerald Murphy, he called Mr. Gerald Murphy to tell him the description to his house for the delivery, but Mr. Gerald Murphy's house help answered the call and told the Diplomat that Mr. Gerald Murphy hard a fatal car accident which lead to his death some few hours before he called.
 
Mr. Gerald has already paid the demurrages from the security company, and he paid for custom check report he also assisted us in getting the DRUG / ANTI TERRORIST CERTIFICATE, which is so expensive that he spent 47 thousand dollars to acquire it, but Unfortunately he died in a car accident, that was why the diplomat has to deposit the consignment box in the state and called us to inform us about what is happening.
 
Please, I and my mother seek for your help to get in contact with the Diplomat so that he can deliver the box to you and please do not mention the content of the box to the diplomat because he only knows that the box contain family valuables. I will explain better to you later.
 
Please, Contact the Diplomat on time and get back to me by email or my phone number.
 
I await your urgent response.
 
Thank you and God bless you
 
Frank Diallo

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