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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: WESTERN UNION <mr.chijoesph501@gmail.com>
Reply-To: officepost631@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2014 10:46:59 -0700
Subject: FROM WESTERN UNION

Dear Friend,

I apologize for the testing that I have had to do to make sure that you are
a business man in United State Of America. I have to be very careful. My
name is not William Jones. It is Brad Mark.

I work FOR WESTERN UNION. I am Director of Transaction Security for eight
nations in West Africa (but I am based in the Nigeria).

I have an idea that can make both of us a LOT OF MONEY.

Every year, thousands of Western Union transfers are never picked up by the
recipient.

Most are small ($500 to $800) but some are over $4,000.00. Even though many
transactions are small, if you pick up a lot of these, you can make a lot
of money quickly.

The usual reason a transaction was not picked up is this: A tourist gets
robbed or loses his wallet. He asks relatives in the USA to send him money
via Western Union Secure. He gets home without picking up the money. Then
he discovers that the money can only be picked up in the country where he
was traveling - it is not worth his time to travel back for $100, so he
forgets about it. These abandoned transactions are called "orphans" here at
Western Union. There are thousands of them!

After 180 days, the MTCN number drops off the web and can no longer be
checked on the internet. But it is still a good MTCN, and I HAVE ACCESS TO
ALL THE ORPHAN MTCN'S FOR EIGHT NATIONS.

I cannot travel to United State or to others foreign countries myself to
claim the money - it would be suspicious for a man in my position with
Western Union to travel to mostly United State, and then to have a lot of
orphan transactions getting paid out. What I can do is give you the MTCN's,
give you the question and the answer for each transaction, and change the
name of the recipient to your name.

As a test, I will send you 20 relatively small MTCN numbers (total about
$2,000) for whichever country you want out of my set of eight countries.
You pick up the money.

You send me one-half BY MONEY GRAM so that it cannot be traced to me.

Once you send me one-half, I will send you another set of 20 MTCN's. Then
another. Then another. And then another. There are thousands of these
orphan MTCN's in each of my eight countries. Many of these transactions are
larger than $1,000, and some are in excess of $3,000.

If you fail to send me 1/2, you will never hear from me again. But if you
are faithful in sending me my percentage, I will send you lots of MTCNS!

Are you interested? Are you in United State?

Let me hear from you.

Thanks.

Brad Mark

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