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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: Tina Micheal Houphouet <tinamichealhouphouet2002@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2021 01:33:56 -1200
Subject: URGENT REPLY FROM TINA.

--
Greetings,
My names are; Tina Micheal Houphouet, I am 20years old. My father is a
politician and physician in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) my late father
was killed along with my late mother on a cool blood, by my wicked
uncles who attacked my family house, they kidnapped me and burn my
family house along with my late parent.

As I am the only child and daughter to my parent, they ceased all my
late family belongings, they ceased our gold mining company, our
houses in the city, and they also ceased my traveling documents and
frozen my bank account along with the account of my parent because
they are top government officials. A month before the death of my late
father, he gave me some documents that contains my family treasures
worth $10.7Million US Dollars and Gold Bars.

I managed to escape from my country to the close country where my late
father deposited the funds and the gold bars, in Ouagadougou, Burkina
Faso. I don’t know anyone here and I am stranded, I need your urgent
assistant to stand on my behalf before the bank and move the funds and
the gold bars, and also move me out from this country as I am
suffering seriously here.
Yours Miss. Tina Micheal Houphouet.

Anti-fraud resources: