Robert Heinlein has a saying "TANSTAAFL" (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch). If it looks too good, it probably is.
There is a fraud promising you millions of dollars from a "government official" (or Widow, or son of a widow, etc.) in Nigeria (or some other small country) with a "secret" bank account, but all they need to transfer the money to you is:
(a)Your Company's Name and Address
(b)Your full Name(s), Telephone, and Fax numbers (Private and Company)
(c)Your Bank Name, Address, Account number, Telex and swift code (if any).
This is the start of the Nigerian AFF (Advance Fee Fraud). A summary is that they ask for you to "help" pay some fees that are required to get the money out of the country, then they try to get you to go to Nigeria (or a bordering country) to meet.
At this point they try to get you into the country without a visa, promising that they will get you a visa. At that point they have you under their control since you are in Nigeria without a visa (no, they never got you a visa) and they start intimidation (physical or otherwise) trying to get money from you.
According to the Department Of State in publication 10465 (release April 1997) "15 foreign businessmen (one American) have been murdered in Nigeria AFF scams".
The Advanced Fee Frauds can also take the form of:
To see the details of this fraud from the U.S. Department of State, see the link below.
Advance Fee Fraud, otherwise known as 419 in Nigeria simply means the demand for and payment of an advance fee in form of tax, brokerage, bribe, etc under the pretence that such is needed to consummate a business deal whether the business in itself is genuine or not. The term 419 derives from section 419 of the Nigeria Criminal Code, which dealt with this offence before the promulgation of the Advance Fee Fraud Decree No 13 in 1995.
Advance Fee Fraud is introduced to intended victimsthrough scam letters containing false information on:
Requests are initially simply and easily accomplished by unsuspecting minds, and are a natural extension of scam letters, which contain the sort of information mentioned above. These letters are tempting, as they tend to show the ease with which money can accrue to the addressees. Thus when items such as particulars of bankers, Company letter head stationeries and blank Company pro-forma invoices are asked for, they are usually received.
Writers of Fraudulent (scam) letters often purport to be persons of social distinction giving themselves bogus prefixes such as Alhaji, Doctor, Prince, Engineer, Chief, HRH (His Royal Highness) etc. They also lay claim to positions of high status as in being Chief Executive Officers, Chairmen, and Executive Directors etc. These positions are claimed to be held in Government offices such as the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria Security Printing & Minting Company (NSPMC), Nigeria Telecommunications (NITEL), Nigeria Postal Services (NIPOST), Ministry of Defence (MOD), etc.
The purported advantage of such proposals lies in the making of huge monetary gains with minimal effort or input. In the case of transfer of funds, there is the inducement of a commission of between thirty to forty percent of the total amount involved to the benefit of the addressee.
Advance Fee Fraud demands surface soon after a link with a would-be victim has been made, and normal course of communication established. Series of demands for money are made under several guises, one demand metamorphosing to the other until the victim is unwilling to make further payments in the apparent realization of deceit in the whole transaction.
Such guises include request for:
Note that these demands do not exist in normal and actual Government contracts. They are a part of the usual ploy to extort money from unsuspecting victims.
The victims targeted by Advance Fee Fraudsters are in the main, foreign nationals who are invited to the country by fraudulent letters, and investors who having arrived the country for genuine business are schemed into fraudulent and frivolous transactions ostensibly to defraud them. Information about such foreigners is easily and usually obtained from catalogues of foreign companies.
What to Do
Upon the receipt of any letter suggesting the inference that it could be fraudulent going by the above analysis, take any of the following actions as applicable:
What Not to Do
Latest Government Measures Against Advance Fee Fraud
The EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) is a Nigerian law enforcement agency that investigates financial crimes such as advance fee fraud (419 fraud) and money laundering. The current Executive Chairman is Farida Mzamber Waziri.
Yes, they are. Numerous complaints of fraud. It's an "advance fee" scam.
An advance fee scam is a form of consumer fraud which involves obtaining a small amount of money from a victim in advance of a larger deferred benefit, such as a job, a high rate of return, or a share of some ill-gotten gain.
020 is the area code for london in the uk this number has been associted with advance fee fraud
419 is a type of fraud named after the article of the Nigerian criminal code under which it is prosecuted.
The cash advance fee on a Capital One credit card is 3% of the advance, with a minimum of $10.
You mean a 419 scam?"A 419 scam is an advance-fee fraud, a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a significantly larger gain. Among the variations on this type of scamare the Nigerian Letter (also called the 419 fraud, Nigerian scam, Nigerian bank scam, or Nigerian money offer), the Spanish Prisoner, the black money scam as well as Russian/Ukrainian scam (also widespread, though far less popular than the former). The so-called Russian and Nigerian scams stand for wholly dissimilar organized-crime traditions; they therefore tend to use altogether different breeds of approaches."- Wikipedia---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Below is a recent complaint filed regarding a 419 Scam:"Online Scam - Other for $2000.00 on 06/22/2009""Some one pretended to hire me and sent me some false money orders to cash. I was to get paid 10 percent. So i did and sent it to a person over seas. Then i paid the bank back"- Scam Book---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The best thing to do when you receive emails regarding these types of scams is to contact the authorities and report the email, email address and alias of the scam artist. I listed URLs relative to this answer below.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nigerian stock exchange sends nices letters to people telling them the won a very special Nigerian lottery. If you ever receive one of these letters be sure to pay the small (very large) tranaction fee, and you will become an instant millionare!
No, they do not. Such that do are refered to as "advance fee" scams. Best avoided.
she lives a secret life as lesbian, married to a Nigerian conman. see her evaluation at a fake clinic. medi care fraud
Yes, it is. Never pay an "advance fee" to work.
An online payday advance is the same as a payday advance except you can get it online. It's when you get a loan from a company for a high interest fee.