419 scam: Laura Spears <info@usa.org> COMPLIMENT OF THE SEASON!!! CONGRATULATION!!!

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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:

This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.

Fraud email example:

From: Laura Spears <info@usa.org>
Reply-To: lauraspearsdirect202@outlook.com
Date: 27 Mar 2023 06:55:46 -0700
Subject: COMPLIMENT OF THE SEASON!!! CONGRATULATION!!!

Hi, I am Laura Spears, the lucky winner who had purchased a Mega Millions ticket on the Michigan Lottery, website for the December 31, 2021 drawing.
I matched five numbers to win $1 million, plus had the Megaplier to multiply her prize by three.
"I saw an ad on Facebook that the Mega Millions jackpot was getting pretty high, so I got on my account and bought a ticket," Spears, 55, told Michigan Lottery officials. "A few days later, I was looking for a missing email from someone, so I checked the spam folder in my email account."
"That was when I saw an email from the Lottery department saying I had won a prize. I couldn't believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my Lottery account to confirm the message in the email. It's all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!”.
The same way I was lucky , I decided to bless 2 persons with the sum of $400,000 each.

Kindly fill out the below information for processing:
NAME:
COUNTRY:
AGE:
PHONE:
GENDER:

Kind Regards:
Mrs Laura Spears

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam