Nigerian Scam - Advance Fee Fraud

Started in the 80's this scam has run per normal post, fax and per telephone and now in our internet age only increasing the number of victims. Stolen funds are subjects to a very low rate of recovery. Don't rely on Nigerian nor your own government to pull you out of the situation. Usually these emails or other means of human interaction are professionally written in many creative ways. While most 419 scams originate from West Africa in Nigeria, that is also where the name "Nigerian Fraud" comes from, certainly it is not the only country practicing these. Organized thieves are scamming people from all over the world. Variations of advanced fee fraud or Nigerian Scam are countless and can appear in a new fashionate ways daily. Default methods of Nigerian Scam are listed below:

Sending Fees In Advance for A Service or Job

Fees in advance, Paid contract, transfer tax or performance bonds are the variations which fall under this category. The Victims are asked to transfer money onto a bank account in advance, usually without their prior inquiry. Meaning you got an email or phone call to send funds without you asking for it. Nowadays you occasionally find variations of these in your spam folder. An example is, You can be asked to transfer money to prevent the death of a child, poor person or someone who has been involved in a terrible car accident. More than often once funds have been sent various "complications" occur and you have to send more money. Moral values of a scammer are close to zero, they don't value anything or anyone. But they do know how to raise compassion in us the victims. For that reason emails and forms like mentioned above have been formed. By any means an email asking you for a service like this can be real! However most of the time this is a fraud and should be avoided by all means. If you receive an email of this kind be sure to check it out all over the internet, police or anything similar to check its legitimacy.

Receiving Funds, Money

A money laundering operation. Victims are chosen randomly or by close examination of your personal information. Scammer claims to send you money for a favor or job you have to do. In fact he will send you money, so you can clean it and send back! A very dangerous thing to do, since officials may track these scammers and next thing you know you are involved in the mafia chain and police comes to your door the next day. And example is, the thief will contact you about receiving a notification from an offshore bank. His "dead relative" left him an extraordinary amount of cash, but he himself can for some reason not claim it. Therefor he needs your help and for that he will give you a percentage of the amount. The reality is these funds are blood money and need to be cleaned by the victims.

Lottery

Congratulations you are the visitor nr. 1.000.000! Please claim your price of 100.000$ but first pay the fees that have occured or was it insurance costs? Usually countries target foreigners who are not familiar with names of lottery institutions in that country. Don't reply to emails or visit websites of this kind. Simply click on X and close your open window, your curiosity is not worth the loss, which could occur. Thousand and Thousand of dollars are being lost every year in this scam industry.

SUMMARY

Advance fee fraud scams usually will relate to at least one of the tree mentioned above. Keep your eyes close on these and try to compare your suspected email to the above article. If you have been a victim try and seek more information here.

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