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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: "LinkedIn Admin" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrscarolinewilliamss@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 10:43:09 -0800
Subject: LinkedIn Admin Lottery Winning Alert!!

LINKEDIN ADMIN LOTTERY WINNING
 
HEADQUARTERS
Palo Alto, California, 94710, 1840 Embarcadero Road,
California, 94303, 2029 Stierlin Court,
Mountain View, California, 94043
 
HEAD OFFICE
Lavenham Road, Wandsworth,
London, SW18
Tel: +447024085153
Fax: +447024088297
 
www.linkedin.com
 
 
CONGRATULATIONS FROM LINKEDIN!
 
LINKEDIN the World’s Largest business professional social networking Community site with currently 150 million registered members in more than 200 countries and territories around the globe valued more than $522 million Dollars.
 
LINKEDIN Key founders: Reid Hoffman,Jeff Weiner and rest associate, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly and Jean-Luc Vaillant has decided to boost Users and Companies a WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY by Lottery Program and Initial Public Offer said in a press release.
 
So We are pleased to inform you of the result of the DRAW held on (10th feb 2014) by LINKEDIN Company in cash Promotion to encourage the usage of LINKEDIN users world wide, your Name and Email was among the 165 Lucky winners who won $90,000.00 USD (Ninety Thousand United State Dollars) each on the LINKEDIN promotion Award Attached to Ticket Number (5647600545189), Ref No (2551256002/244) and Serial Number (55643451907).
 
The online draw was Conducted by a random selection of email and your email address where picked by an Advanced automated random computer search from the LINKEDIN. in other to claim your winning funds the lottery program which is a new innovation by LINKEDIN, saying A BIG THANKS to you all our users for making LINKEDIN your number one business professional social networking.
 
This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants, All participants were selected through a computer ballot system with their email addresses and names from all over the world.
 
Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our African booklet representative office in West Africa as indicated in our play coupon.
 
To file for your claim, kindly contact our fiduciary agent with the below details for processing of your claims and remittance of your wining fund.
 
FIDUCIARY AGENT: MRS CAROLINE L WILLIAMS
E-mail:  linkedserialinfo@yahoo.com
 
To avoid unnecessary delays and complications please remember to quote your Ticket, Reference and Batch Numbers in all correspondences as wining will be cancel after 72hours of no claim
 
Thanks,
LINKEDIN ADMIN AUTHORITY.
 
 

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