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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: "Erika Colt" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ophoebe831@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2021 19:46:39 -0600
Subject: Re: Unclaimed Funds

My name is Erika Colt, I am a claims processor with the World Bank Group. World Bank Group is an international financial institution that provides loans, funding and grants to governments agencies in different countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. We have been assigned to work on several unclaimed "Sweepstakes, Lotto and Lottery" files reported by international monetery institutions different Online/Internet/National Games Board Commissions, most of these files has little to no information about its funds owners...

All efforts to trace owners of these prizes have yielded no results. Unfortunately, these funds are about to be confiscated by the World Bank Group and funds will be distributed among different African goverment agencies, and funds will end-up in corruptible hands.

I am sending this communication to the winning electronic address found on the "Sweepstakes, Lotto and Lottery" files that cames through my desk in the hopes the owner will get a final chance to lay claims to their winning funds, the winning file number is WB-448100182 and the winning value of this prize is about £1.5 Million Pounds.

If you are the owner of this email address, this is the time you can lay claims to your funds. This is going to be the last notification to help you secure your funds. When you respond to this message please quote the file number, and endeavor to check your junk/spam mailbox for response to your claim.

Regards,
Erika Colt

Anti-fraud resources: