419 SCAM WARNING, ARE YOU BEING SCAMMED?
Are you in negotiations with someone who approached you by unsolicited email? They are claiming to have a large amount of money for you in the form a consignment, contract payment, lottery win, money from a person dying from cancer, where they want to send the money to you and you will take a % for helping them, or maybe you are claiming an inheritance, well, this is to inform you that those are all very common African scam emails you have received, it is called "419 advance fee fraud", if you Google that term you will see the results for yourself, to save you searching, here is a direct link to the Google Results For 419 Advance Fee Fraud
The scammers use fake names, operate out of internet cafes and use unregistered mobile (cell) phones to remain anoymous whilst they scam people around the world. If you have sent, or are about to send money via Western Union to cover fees that they have asked you to pay, stop now, do not send them any money.
They are scamming you, if you give them money, you will NOT see your money again, there is no consignment payment, no lottery winnings, no inheritance, nothing, victims are told things like that so that the scammer can charge them various advance fees, for things like diplomatic couriers to deliver the non existant money to the victim, or for dilpomatic tags, again, these do not exist and are just used to scam fees from victims. Once a victim has paid the courier fee/diplomatic tag fee, then there will be another problem at the airport, for which you will have to pay another fee for back taxes, customs duties, import taxes and so on, then there will be another problem and they might say they are withdrawing the money back to Africa, then it all starts again, with you having to pay diplomatic courier fees again etc, all the time you are lining their pockets, the fees are never ending, that is why this is called "Advance Fee Fraud"!
DO NOT send these people any money, DO NOT give them any of your personal details such as bank account details, home telephone numbers, home address, social security number etc, and under no circumstances should you ever travel to meet the scammers. These are extremely dangerous people, many victims have been murdered and many more have been kidnapped, robbed or held to ransom by these 419 scammers. Use the following link to a BBC news story about a UK man kidnapped by Nigerian 419 scammer's, that man nearly lost his life.
You can also visit my other site at Scam Info Links Victim News to see a number of victims who were robbed, kidnapped and murdered after meeting with scammers who they though were legitimate people, the site also contains a lot of information about other types of online scams and fraud, please dont become another statistic like some of those victims became! If you need information about ID theft, visit www.idtheft.co.uk
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| Warning Signs That You Are Being Scammed |
You have been asked to keep this deal a secret.
You have been asked to supply sensitive personal information like bank account numbers, social security number, etc, or personal documents such as a passport or driver's license scan.
You have received official-looking documents by email.
You are being asked to pay a sum of money up-front to release documents, trunk boxes, an inheritance, etc. Additional fees and costs seem to materialize.
You have been referred by email to a security company, banker, diplomat or barrister who is in control of these goods, and claims to be releasing them to you.
Your contact writes in broken English or disjointed sentences, sometimes changing writing styles from CAPITALS to lowercase text.
Your contact pleads or threatens you to send money, often concocting a story about selling jewellery, mortgaging property, or claiming sudden illness or an accident.
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| How A Typical Nigerian 419 Scam Works |
This fraud typically originates with the scam operator soliciting your assistance to move millions of dollars from africa to a different continent (scammers tell victims that trunk boxes contain the money, that really does not exist), you can see many variations of African Trunk Box Scams By Clicking Here. You may be told that this money belongs to you as the next of kin of a deceased person who stashed the money away shortly before they died. Quite often this ficitious sum of money will supposedly be deposited with an online bank or fake security company.
You will eventually be asked to pay fees ranging from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars for administration fees, storage fees, transportation costs, clearance documents, Lawyers' fee's etc etc.
In the final stages of the scam you will again be asked for tens of thousands of dollars, to supposedly pay for government taxes, insurance documents, anti-terrorist documents, or generally some other excuse for you to pay a lot of money in extra fee's, the fee's list is never ending. Note that all parties introduced by the person originally soliciting your help, the "Diplomat", "Lawyers", "Online Bank" and the"Security Company" etc, are all part of the scam team.
Sometimes you will be asked to travel to an African country (usually places like Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, Ibadan, Lagos, Lome) or to europe, mostly Amsterdam & other locations is Spain and London to claim the money. Many scam victims who have travelled abroad have been kidnapped and numerous victims have been murdered.
The scam artist may send you a counterfeit cashier's cheque and ask you to wire some of that money to a third party by Western Union, DONT SEND ANY MONEY. If you receive a cheque, be advised that it is counterfeit or stolen, if you cash it, YOU are liable to be arrested for fraud and YOU are liable to repay your bank the full amount of the fake cheque if you deposit and send the funds to the scammer. See these 2 links below for more details:
scammers victim who was arrested here
US victim who cashed a $48,000 fake cheque
Be advised that these scammer's have probable strong links with Al-Qeada and other terrorist organisations, they are very extremely dangerous people and we advise you to cease contact immediately. Any money you send may well be going towards helping terrorism. See this link about Nigerian email scams linked to terrorism:
Al-Qaeda, ETA en PKK are copying Nigerian scams to fund terrorism
We advise you to cease all contact with the scammers, don't be tempted to send them one last email telling them what you think of them, remember, they have all of your personal details, so it's not wise to annoy them, also, be aware that whilst some of them operate from within Africa, many of them operate from within Europe, the US and Canada, you could well have one of them living not far from you, would you want a dangerous criminal paying you a visit in the middle of the night? The best course of action is to simply block their email addreses and forget about them, if they phone you and you don't have caller display, of course, answer the phone, but once you hear it is the scammers voice, put the phone down without saying a word, they will soon get bored of calling when they realise they are getting no money from you!
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External Scam Links
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Scam Victim Help Sites
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