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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: "Gary Wegner" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <Michelle.l.Nickels@yandex.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2019 06:24:38 -0000
Subject: Re: Reminder from Gary

Hi,
 
I contacted you 3 years ago, and you responded but I got so ill that I didn’t follow with you or direct you further on how we will go about this. I had a partial stroke and was under intensive care for all these years till now that I feel better.
 
My Name is Gary Wegner; I was dismissed from Umpqua Bank in 2012 because I do some extra deals within the bank. My sack earned me a two years jail terms and on return, a company account of mine which had $78,000,000.00 in it went dormant. When the account got dormant for a very long time, Federal Reserve Bank Escrowed the fund on the regular escrow agreement of 21% net interest annually, now I have about $180,000,000 that needs to be assigned back to an account in Umpqua Bank and activated for use.
All I am requesting of you is that you present yourself as the owner of my company & fund to complete the account activation and complete evacuation of the above-mentioned fund from the account without involving or referring to me so that the bank doesn't discover the actual fund owner.
 
I will give you all the details required to make this deal successful. You can also keep 20% of the fund when the deal is complete and pass the 80% to me.
 
I will guide you step by step until the deal is completed so you can call or Whatsapp-chat me on +1(305) 204-1293; I think I can explain better face to face or on call.
 
I will like to chat with you on any of the social media you are conversant with like Whatsapp  so that we can discuss elaborately on this subject.
 
Please help me out if you don’t mind.
 
Gary Wegner

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