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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: "Morgan Peterson" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <peterson2@mynet.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2012 10:50:45 +1000
Subject: My proposal to you,

Dear Friend,

I know it will be a surprise for you to receive my email through the Internet which may not be the best method of sending you this kind of proposal due to the abuse of the Internet. My name is Morgan Peterson, I work with the Finance Unit Netherlands, we are in charge of auditing foreign account holder.
During our last annual inspections of all foreign account holders, My department found a dormant account with an enormous sum of US 6,500,000.00 (Six Million Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars) which was deposited by one Mr. Jerry R. Williams a British citizen,in regards to why the account has be dormant My department set up an investigation comity to investigate the account,and I was the chairman of the investigation comity. to my investigation why the account has not be operative for so long I found out that the account holder has died in a plane crash in November 1999 which lead to the dormant of the account.
As I investigate further I found out the late Jerry R. Williams has not indicated any beneficiary or next of kin in his certificate of deposit with the bank,and to the law of my country here in Netherlands when an account is dormant for more than eight 8 years the authority (Ministry of finance) has every tendency to confiscate the account and the money will go into the government account. In regards to that,am contacting you to stand as the beneficiary to the deceased account since you are not a Netherlands citizen. I will provide all support proof documents to put you in the place of beneficiary to the funds upon your interest to the proposal.
I will need us to work together if you are interested, I assure you of all useful information that we enable us transfer the money out of the deceased account into your own designated bank account in your country legally. I will want you to write me with your Given name, Contact Telphone number,and your contact address. You can contact me on my private email: morgan1_peterson@aol.com as I await your prompt responds

Best Regards,
Morgan Peterson

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