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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: MELVIN CLARKE <melvin21.clarke@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2023 06:55:22 -0700
Subject: PLEASE SAVE US AND OUR CONSIGNMENT

Good day Daddy/Mommy

I am sending you this email with the spirit of happiness and with great
amount of trust.Am 15years old, my name is Melvin Clark, from Liberia . I
am the eldest son of my father,the late Captain Gordon Clark, the former
Director of the Ministry of Mining and Solid Mineral,Liberia .

I am now in Ghana as a refugee in the Ghana refugee camp. Please, I want to
confide in you to help me solve this problem that I have. My late father
deposited a consignment with a security & finance company before the war in
my country, and when the fight was ablaze, my parent was shot dead by the
rebels and I and my sister escaped to exile by the assistant of The United
Nations peacekeeping soldiers and we were brought to Ghana to seek asylum
under Ghana Government.

Now the Security Company has handed over the box to me as the next of kin
one of my late father's friends, Mr. Yang Lee from CHINA asked to open the
box with the key and take $22,000 from it and send to him $20,000 and rent
a hotel for me and my sister with $1,000 then use the balance $1,000 for
clothes and feeding which i did.

All effort to contact Mr. Lee has proved abortive after he has received the
money but I still have the consignment box with me in the Hotel security
vault and remain the next of kin to empower a new foreign partner to assist
and work on behalf of me, it is on this note that I am contacting you to
please assist me to receive the consignments for me in your country and
help us invest the funds for the benefit of our future.

Please, this is confidential, and I have not told anybody before about
this, the consignment contains 50 Carats of purple rough-cut diamond
gemstones of Diamond Creek, Lofa County Origin and $40 Million U.S Dollars
($40,000,000.00usd) in two silver boxes.

I count on you and i trust you because I am sure and i have the belief that
you can do it and be honest with me.please help me in the name of the
Father.

At the moment i did not have any financial power to handle this transaction
alone and that is why I am getting you involved to help me with one mind
and solve this problem for me. I am sending this email to a public cafe, I
cannot say everything here for confidential reasons, but please you can
give me your telephone number and I will call you immediately,but here is
mine so maybe you can call me if possible +233560846942. I have all the
documents in my father's briefcase here with me,if you don't mind I can
scan them for you then you can let me know how you can iron this issue out
for me as soon as possible.

Thank you, with hope for your help. Please kindly send your full name,tel
number if you know that you are interested in helping me.

Yours truly,
Melvin Clarke
+233560846942

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