Facebook Sweepstakes 419 Scam Promises $100,000 (€76,000)

A fake Facebook lottery is making the rounds, promising recipients a prize of $100,000 (€76,000). In reality, those who respond to the email message that carries the scam will be asked to pay certain amounts of money that are allegedly needed to complete the transaction.

Apparently signed by “The Facebook Team,” the message tries to convince users that all they have to do is report to the nearest Facebook office with the winning code.

Since the fraudsters are aware that there is no “Facebook office” near anyone, they tell the recipients to contact them if they don’t know the location of such an establishment.

This is the part when things become interesting. Users who reply are asked to visit a certain country to collect the prize, but since the country is most likely far from the victim’s place of residence, the crooks offer an alternative.


They offer to send the money in return for a fairly small transaction fee, that supposedly can’t be deducted from the prize because of legal or insurance reasons.

Internet users are advised to ignore such claims. No one wins anything from these scams, except for the ones that run them.

In this particular case, it’s clear that everything is a scam, mainly because it doesn’t make any sense. Why would Facebook use Gmail to promote its own email services?

Take a look at the phony email, provided by Hoax Slayer and see for yourself:

Dear,

Congratulations! you are among the 100 lucky facebook email users that won $100,000 USD (One hundred thousand United States Dollars) each in the just concluded facebook Sweepstakes.

The Sweepstakes was organized to reward facebook email users because of their undying support and massive usage of the facebook email service.The facebook email was launched in November 2010 and by April 2012,facebook email users has passed 100 million,we were excited about this great number of facebook email users within a short period of time and we are hoping that this Sweepstakes will create awareness and encourage more facebook users to activate the facebook email feature on their facebook accounts.

Winners were picked randomly via a balloting process powered by Gmail.Your winning code is wumt33/us.visa23/ikobo11-85/lutrija98-99/mcfcth5-6-10/[removed]@gmail.com

You are required to report at any facebook office nearest to you and present to them your winning code,to enable them pay you the prize money and give you the winning documents.

Reply if you dont know a facebook office near you,to enable us send you a facebook office address nearest to you.

Thanks for using facebook email

The facebook Team

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