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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "Alex Williams" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <williamsalex713@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2015 22:05:30 +0100
Subject: Dear Friend, Your Urgent Assistance Is Needed

Dear Friend,

My name is Alex Williams and I work with a Bank here in London-England, The name of the bank is Metro Bank London (England). We had a Mr. Allan P. Smith, customer that had a deposit of US$43.5M (Forty Three Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) before he Died in a plane crash with his wife and only Child about 8 years now (January 30, 2006) and since he died, we in the Bank here have been expecting his/her next of kin/relative(s) for the inheritance of the deposit, but none has surfaced.

The policy of the Bank however stipulates a limited time period for such inheritance to be made or the fund will be written off going by the record of the incident, the time limit for the claim is closing up. In this consideration, I am contacting you to seek for your kind understanding and sincere co-operation to claim this inheritance for our mutual benefit.

If you can stand as the next of kin in this project, success is assured because I am in possession of the personal file jacket of the deceased which contains every needed information about the account and the deceased and you and I stand no risk of any kind because I have enough information to support you in claiming the inheritance. The proceedings of the transaction will be shared 50% each after Expenses are reimbursed.

Kindly indicate your willingness by return email or you call for more informartion, and we shall proceed with the initial step for the claim. The entire project is expected to last for about ten working days.
my direct line is +447924573508.
Best Regards,
Alex Williams.

Anti-fraud resources: