An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and one of the most common types of confidence tricks. 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 requires in order to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim or simply disappears.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that, "An advance fee scheme occurs when the victim pays money to someone in anticipation of receiving something of greater value—such as a loan, contract, investment, or gift—and then receives little or nothing in return."

There are many variations of this type of scam, including the 419 scam (also known as the Nigerian Prince scam), the Spanish Prisoner scam, the black money scam, Fifo's Fraud and the Detroit-Buffalo scam. The scam has been used with fax and traditional mail, and is now prevalent in online communications like emails.

While Nigeria is most often the nation referred to in these scams, they originate in other nations as well. In 2006, 61% of internet criminals were traced to locations in the United States, while 16% were traced to the United Kingdom, and 6% to Nigeria.Other nations known to have a high incidence of advance-fee fraud include: Ivory Coast,Togo, South Africa, the Netherlands,Spain, Polandand Jamaica.The number "419" refers to the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud, the charges and penalties for offenders.

Look well now, even the ones originating from outside naija a still our peoe dey master mind am.

I have written something like this, a full exposé but don't have the time to edit the final work and post