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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: "Bill Gates" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrbillgatesdonates@qq.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2015 09:10:56 -0500
Subject: $5 MILLION USD DONATION FROM MR BILL GATES

Greetings to You

You have been gifted $5 MILLION USD From Bill Gates Donation. Contact me at this email for your claim: mrbillgatesdonates@qq.com


I hope this information meet you well as I know you will be curious to know why/how I selected you to receive a cash sum of $5,000,000,00 USD, our information below is 100% legitimate, please see the link below:

http://charity.lovetoknow.com/Bill_Gates_Charity

I BILL GATE and my wife decided to donate the sum of $5,000,000,00 USD to you as part of our charity project to improve the 10 lucky individuals all over the world from our $65 Billion Usd I and My Wife Mapped out to help people. We prayed and searched over the internet for assistance because i saw your profile on Microsoft email owners list and picked you. Melinda my wife and i have decided to make sure this is put on the internet for the world to see. me and my wife have cancer and as you could see from the webpage above, am not getting any younger and you can imagine having no much time to live. although am a Billionaire investor and we have helped some charity organizations from our Fund.

You see after taken care of the needs of our immediate family members, Before we die we decided to donate the remaining of our Billions to other individuals around the world in need, the local fire department, the red cross, Haiti, hospitals in truro where Melinda underwent her cancer treatment, and some other organizations in Asia and Europe that fight cancer, alzheimer's and diabetes and the bulk of the funds deposited with our payout bank of this charity donation. we have kept just 30% of the entire sum to our self for the remaining days because i am sick and am writing you from hospital computer because i dont know when i will die.and me and my wife will be traveling to Germany for Treatment.

To facilitate the payment process of the funds ($5,000,000.00 USD) which have been donated solely to you, you are to send us

your full names.................
your contact address................
your personal telephone number...............

so that i can forward your payment information to you immediately. I am hoping that you will be able to use the money wisely and judiciously over there in your City. please you have to do your part to also alleviate the level of poverty in your region, help as many you can help once you have this money in your personal account because that is the only objective of donating this money to you in the first place.


Thank you for accepting our offer, we are indeed grateful You Can Google my name for more information: Bill Gates Charity or Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

God bless you
Regards MR Bill Gates

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