419

Alternatively referred to as the Africa scam or Nigeria scam, the 419 scam is named after the penal code that it is prosecuted under in Nigeria Africa. The scam is almost always distributed through e-mail or faxes and tell the recipient that they've won the lottery or they know or are in contact with a businessman, official, orphan, president, rich deceased person, widow, etc. who needs help withdrawing or gaining access to money. Often this is a large some of money, e.g. several hundred thousand or several million dollars that you're promised in part or whole.

The scams always involve one or more of the below tactics.

  1. You must make a small deposit to help with the withdraw the large sum of money from the account.
  2. The money needs to be transferred to a different account, which requires you hand over bank or account information.
  3. You must cash a check or cheque that is sent to you.
  4. The deal must be done in secret, you can't tell anyone.

As always if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. If you receive this scam we suggest you delete the e-mail.

Also see: Scam, Security definitions, Phishing