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An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is a common confidence trick. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum.
A legitimate law enforcement agency would normally allow the victim to make the first contact, and will not solicit an advance fee. The recovery scam has the victim's number only because it is operated by an accomplice of the original scammer, using a "sucker list" from the earlier fraud. [96]
A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity , naivety , compassion , vanity , confidence , irresponsibility , and greed .
An alternative form of lottery fraud, commonly known as a lottery scam, takes the form of informing an individual by email, letter or phone call that they have won a lottery prize. The victim is instructed to pay a fee to enable the non-existent winnings to be processed. This type is a form of advance-fee fraud and a common email scam. [1] [2]
The Cameroonian non-delivery scam is something totally different again and not a 419-scam, yet still advance fee fraud. Likewise we see the South African tender scam which originated due to the cross pollination of expats from the Cameroon and Nigeria evolve a unique modus operandi that where South African business were vulnerable.
419, see § Advance-fee; Advance-fee – involves promising a victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. [3]
After the list is sold, the victims may be called by scammers promising to recover the money they lost or the prize or merchandise they never received, in an advance-fee scam. [4] [5] An early example of sucker lists is mentioned an 18 November 1929 article in Time which described a list of people who contributed to a lobbyist fund. [6]
The miracle cars scam was an advance-fee scam run from 1997 to 2002 by Californians James R. Nichols and Robert Gomez. In its run of just over four years, over 4,000 people bought 7,000 cars that did not exist, netting over US$ 21 million from the victims.