What is It!
Advance Fee Fraud, otherwise known as 419 in Nigeria simply means the demand for and payment to 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 victims through scam letters (unsolicited fax, letter or electronic message) containing false information on:
- Millions of Dollars from over invoiced contracts in Nigeria.
- Millions of Dollars from funds left by deceased persons.
- Contracts for the purchase of vehicles, computers and accessories, medical equipment, etc all running into millions of Dollars.
- The sale of Crude oil.
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 proforma 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 realisation of deceit in the whole transaction.
Such guises include request for:
- 5% Remittance fee
- 1% legal charges
- Job completion certificate charges
- 3% National Economic recovery Fund Tax
- Inheritance tax (in the case of funds supposedly emanating from Wills)
- Value Added Tax (VAT)
- Revenue Tax amongst others.
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 are easily and usually obtained from catalogues of foreign companies.
Be aware that this article is far from complete. We just
want to give you an idea of what's going on, there are so many other way's of
fraud done by so many other's all over the world and not only by Nigerians.
NOTE: "nigerians.biz" wishes to inform the general public in Nigeria and around the world that if you have used an address or phone number from this site that leads to any act as mentioned above we have nothing to do with such letters or scams letters.
"nigerians.biz" shall not be responsible for any loss that may be suffered by any person(s) relying on the information on the website.
We would welcome information on any suspected fictitious business name, address, phone number, email or website you may come across on "nigerians.biz". We will remove such entries immediately after considerable investigation.
If there is a business entry on our website you would like to alert us about please send an email to info@nigerians.biz.
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