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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: "National Westminster Bank" (may be fake)
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 15:01:45 -0800
Subject: Important Message

Dear Customer
While performing customers account maintenance and verification procedures, we have detected a slight error in your account information. We have been trying to contact you. However, we are unable to reach you.

In-order to safeguard your account and financial assets against unauthorised use at no cost, we have temporarily restricted access to your account and certain features within our online banking and mobile banking system. Such as (Receive payments, Make payments or withdraw funds). As a security measures, 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)
. Logging from an unrecognised machine or device.
. Submitting incorrect information during online payment process.
. Too many incorrect login attempts.

Due to this, you are now require to confirm and verify your account information with us immediately. This will help us in safeguarding your account & personal information from unauthorised access in future. If you are unable to complete our account verification process within 24 hours, please contact us immediately.

Please note: If your account information is not confirmed and verified within a certain period of time, ability to access your account would become permanently restricted.

Best regards,

National Westminster Bank Online and Mobile Banking Security Team.

Calls may be recorded.

Anti-fraud resources: