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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: "Mr.Patrick Joseph" <mrpatricko8@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mrpatrickjos8@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2013 21:35:05 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Greetings From Mr.Patrick Joseph




Greetings From Mr.Patrick Joseph

Dear Friend,

Let me start by introduce myself, I am Mr.Patrick Joseph, The Director incharge of Head of Operations (Africa Development Bank) Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

With due respect and regard, I have decided to contact you on a Business Transaction that will be very beneficial to both of us and our families in future. I am a Ghanaian married with three kids. I am writing to solicit your assistance in the transfer of $13,500.000.00 U.S Dollars. This fund is the excess of what my branch in which I am the director made as profit during the 2012 financial year. I have already submitted annual report for that year to my head office here in Burkina Faso as I have watched with keen interest as they will never know of this excess.

I have since placed this amount of $13,500.000.00 U.S Dollars on an Escrow Coded account without a beneficiary (Anonymous) to avoid trace. As an officer of the bank, I cannot be directly connected to this money thus I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive this money into your bank account on my behalf.

Although personally, I kept this information secret within myself to enable the whole plans and idea be profitable and successful during the time of execution. I agree that 45% of this money will be for you as a foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 5% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 50% would be for me. I do need to stress that there are practically no risk involved in this. It's going to be a bank-to-bank transfer. All I need from you is to stand as the next of kin of depositor of this fund so that the fund can be transferred to your account.

This is why and only reason I contacted you, I am willing to invest the fund into your company/Country with your wealth of experience, So please if you are interested to assist on this venture kindly contact me back for a brief discussion on how to proceed.

I wait for your kind response after reading this email and questions were in doubts for clarification.

Thanks,
Mr.Patrick Joseph.

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