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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: "National Westminster Bank" (may be fake)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 14:21:23 +0100
Subject: Important Mail

Dear Customer,

While performing customers account maintenance and billing statements procedures, we have detected a slight error on your account billing information.

For your security, we have been trying to contact you. However, we are unable to reach you. Due to this, Certain limitations have been placed on your account. Such as (Receive payments, Make payments or withdraw funds) until account verification procedures as been confirm.

This might be due to either of the following reasons:

A recent change in your personal information. (eg: address, phone)
Submitting incorrect information during login process
Login from an unrecognized machine or device
Too many incorrect login attempts

Due to this, to continue banking online, we request you to confirm and validate your account(s) information with us immediately by following our secure login reference button giving  below.

Login

Important notices: You must complete all steps otherwise you will not be able to access the online service until you have completed the additional security checks.

Best Regards
NatWest Bank Online Security Team

How does it work?

If we detect any unusual activity on your account, we may decide that we want to call you to confirm that it's really you.

Calls may be recorded.

Anti-fraud resources: