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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: "Mrs. Elizabeth Mohammed Galal" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <elizabethmohamedgalal@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2017 21:45:46 -0700
Subject: FROM MRS. ELIZABETH.

 
Good day,
 
My name is Mrs. Elizabeth Mohammed Galal; Can I seek your consent to establish a charity foundation in my name? You may wonder how I got to know you and your information, and what informed my decision, you have no cause to worry about these questions, I mean no harm. I am a dying woman without a child and I was diagnosed of cancer four years ago.
 
In my present condition, life is without meaning to me and hope has since eluded me, each day I give my entire existence a thought, I feel over powered by gloom and despair, also saw nothing but death lurking around, All these are my reasons for deciding on using anything in my name for charity in which co-incidentally you have been favored as the beneficiary.
 
I shall be undergoing major operations in few days from now and I want to will my inheritance to you and to enable you set up the charity foundation to help the less-privileged.
 
My late husband family members are very wicked and i dont want them to know anything about all the investment my late husband had and i dont want them to benefit in any of them because they are so wicked.
 
All our shares i and my late husband sold before he died and some of our properties the money was  deposited in the Bank many years ago and none of my late husband family knows about it.That is the money i want to will out so that you can use it for Charity organization.
 
Please go through with the massage if you can handle that then i will inform you the details you have to forward to me so that i will forward it to the Bank so that they will release all the money to you as my next of kin because i will send authorization later to them to release the money to you.
 
Yours Truly
Mrs. Elizabeth Mohammed Galal
 

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