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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: Charles Oladipo <coladipo@outlook.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 09:07:30 -0700
Subject: REPLY ASAP

Dear Friend,

I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise, I got your
contact address from the computerized search. My name is Mr Charles
Oladipo, I am the Bill and Exchange (assistant) Manager of Skye Bank
Plc, Nigeria. In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of
eighteen million three hundred thousand United State of American
dollars (18.3MILLION USA DOLLARS) in an account that belongs to one of
our foreign customer Mr Song Lile from Hong Kong (CHINA) who died
along with his family in Siber airline that crashed into sea at Israel
on 4th October 2001.

Since I got information about his death I have been expecting his next
of kin to come over and claim his money because we can not release it
unless somebody applies for it as the next of kin or relation to the
deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines, but unfortunately we
learn that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside
with him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is
therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this business
proposal to you and release the money to you as next of kin or
relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since
nobody is coming for it and I don't want the money to go into the bank
treasury as unclaimed bill.

Am contacting you because our deceased customer is a foreigner and a
Nigerian can not stand as a next of kin to foreign customer. The
banking guidelines stipulate that the fund should be transferred into
the bank treasury after (13) years if nobody is coming for the claim.

I have agreed that 33% of this money will be for you as foreign
partner in respect to the provision of your account for the transfer,
2% will be set aside for expenses that might occurred during the
business and 65% would be for me, after which I shall visit your
country for disbursement according to the percentage as indicated.

Please I would like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a
top secret as you may wish to know that I am a bank official.

Yours sincerely,
Mr Charles Oladipo.

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