I received a message the I won a big sum of money: come to…

Hi there and thank you for your question,

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WARNING: THIS IS MOST PROBABLY A NiGERIAN 419 ADVANCED FEE SCAM !!!!!!!!

The GOLDEN rule in this situation is that whenever an upfront payment of money is requested before you can receive another BIG payment, or before your payment can be "released", you should take extra caution that it is a scam.

The scammers will send you (what looks like) original documents from some fake institution (pretending to be real), or will send you to a fake internet banking website as "proof" of your money that has been deposited into your account. It's all fake.

They will tell you that the transfer has gone through, and that you have paid to send the transfer, but will then invent a further charge relating to the receipt of the money, or dealing with Treasury or something like that.

They may even request that you pay them to complete a sworn affidavit of claim or a fact certificate so that you can issue the documents.

My suggestion is to BREAK OFF ALL FURTHER COMMUNICATION WITH THEM ... YOU ARE ONLY GOING TO LOOSE YOUR MONEY....

The so-called "419" scam (aka "Nigeria scam") is a type of fraud named after an article of the Nigerian penal code under which it is prosecuted. It is also known as "Advance Fee Fraud" because the common principle of all the scam format is to get the victim to send cash (or other items of value) upfront by promising them a large amount of money that they would receive later if they cooperate. In almost all cases, the criminals receive money using Western Union and MoneyGram, instant wire transfer services with which the recipient can't be traced once the money has been picked up. These services should never be used with people you only know by email or telephone!

This could include strange long distance relatives who have left you millions in their will, and all you need to do is to pay the bank charges (R10,000) to have the money released.

The victims are promised a fortune for providing a bank account to transfer the money to. Then - if they fall for the scam - they are made to part with thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in "bribes" for local officials or other "fees" (taxes, insurance, legal fees, etc) before the "partners" finally disappear without trace.

Many 419 scams involve a fake lawyer (usually a person who calls himself a Barrister or claims to work for a firm whose name includes the word "Chambers").

An advance-fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a significantly larger gain.

You can have a look at this site http://www.419scam.org/419scam.htm for more information.

Please note: I am not 100% positive that this is a SCAM, but I can give you a 99.99% sure that if you did not enter the lottery, or initiate contact with this person, then this is most probably an advanced fee SCAM.

Depending in what information you have given these people, you might indeed be at risk of identity theft. It would be advisable to keep a close look at activity on you bank and credit card accounts and report any unauthorised activity immediately. If you feel up for it, it might be a good idea to change your banking details.

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Good luck and best regards,

CaseLaw