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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: "Peter Achilleos" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <peterachilleos2015@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 13:58:35 -0300
Subject: Business Interest.

Greetings,
It was nice to have your contact and I hope this mail doesn't come to you as a surprise or be treated as spam because i consider this info highly classified and pertinent. I am one of the senior staff in one of Bank here in United Kingdom. I am contacting you with regards to this particular fund floating in our Bank belonging to one of our deceased customer. I decided to contact you about this unclaimed deposits. If you are not interested, please ignore this mail and go about your normal business but if you are interested reply me and i will give you the full information.
Regards,
Peter Achilleos

Anti-fraud resources: