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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: "Miss. Wirawan Manakit" <mirawan2224@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 05:35:26 -0700
Subject: Keep this to yourself,it is important

Greetings

I need your urgent help and I want our communication to be basically
through the email as I would not want this to be exposed to another party,
keep this information I am giving out now to yourself. My name is Wirawan
Manakit and I ask for your help in getting the money left behind by late
Mr. Robert McCarthy who was a South African according to his records with
our bank. If this will endanger your position and reputation, I would not
have contacted you. This is safe and beneficial to both of us financially.
I am presently the operations manager of our bank here in Chonburi,
Thailand and please do keep these information to yourself. I will give you
more details of myself, our bank and the transaction itself once you accept
to do this with me.

Late Mr. Robert McCarthy lived and worked in Thailand as a real estate
businessman and he deposited in our bank the sum of six million, one
hundred and seventeen thousand US dollars (US$6,117,000) as fixed deposit
for a period two years in 1996 and this deposit has not been claimed until
this moment. It is the routine of our bank to transfer all deposits that
have been inactive for this length of time to the government's account. One
thing with this particular account that attracted my interest is that the
depositor did not put any beneficiary at the time he made the deposit and
therefore did not leave anyone for our bank to contact where he is not
available. I have on my own undertaken an independent investigation to know
his whereabouts since there is no one else to contact and I realized that
he died in early 1997 as a result of heart related illness.

I have gone to his last known address and everyone that knew him confirmed
he was dead and I also inquired from the registrar of deaths, his death was
registered and there is no known relative of him as well. I made further
effort at the South African embassy here in Thailand and no information of
him was found. All these made it impossible for me to locate any of his
relatives, since this is the issue, I want you to apply as the beneficiary
of the deceased in the capacity of his friend in order to claim the deposit
from our bank. Due to the way our bank works, it is only someone outside of
Thailand that can successfully make the claim. It does not matter if you
knew him or not, it does not matter if you had any kind of relationship
with him or not, I will guide you all the way until the claim is made. It
is not a matter of being greedy, we are not hurting anyone by making this
claim and it is not the best to leave the money to eventually end up in the
hands of few corrupt government officials while we have the opportunity to
live better with the money when claimed. This transaction is a risk free
one and as the operations manager of our bank, the final approval of your
application will be done by me. Once I approve it, you will have the right
to claim the money.

We will share the money into two equal parts (50:50) when the claim is made
and I will come over to your country for my own share of the money.
Everything will be done successfully as I am in a position to influence
things in our favor, have no fear about this. Right now, I have all the
copies of documents relating to the deposit he made that you will file to
back up this claim. All I require is your sincerity and honest cooperation
to enable us make this claim successfully and we have to do this within the
shortest time possible because the money will be reverted to the
government's account if not claimed now.

If you are willing to do this with me, you are to confirm the follow
information of yours:

1. Full Names:
2. Residential Address:
3. City:
4. Zip/Postal Code:
5. State/Province:
6. Country:
7. Phone Number:
8. Occupation:
9. Age:
10. Sex

Upon the receipt of the above information, I shall inform you on what next
to do to make sure you receive the money. I am waiting for your details in
order to move to the next step towards getting the money. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Miss. Wirawan Manakit
Phone: +66-929376639 or Email: mirawan2224@gmail.com

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