joewein.net   joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days
  jwSpamSpy

Home
About Us
Spam
419/Nigeria
Fraud
Contact

"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

The so-called "419" scam is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money, such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc.

Victims never receive this non-existent fortune but are tricked into sending their money to the criminals, who remain anonymous. They hide their real identity and location by using fake names and fake postal addresses as well as communicating via anonymous free email accounts and mobile phones.

Keep in mind that scammers DO NOT use their real names when defrauding people.
The criminals either abuse names of real people or companies or invent names or addresses.
Any real people or companies mentioned below have NO CONNECTION to the scammers!

Read more about such scams here or in our 419 FAQ. Use the Scam-O-Matic to verify suspect emails.

Click here to report a problem with this page.

 

 

Fraud email example:

From: "Online Lottery" <claimsnotificationdept@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 03:46:22 -0500
Subject: WINNING NOTIFICATION OF ONLINE LOTTERY(WINNING SUM OF £8,680,770.00)

Silver British Promotions
P O Box 657
London, United Kingdom
(Customer Services)

WEB NOTIFICATION OF LOTTO WINNINGS:

We happily announce to you the draws of Silver British Promotions Lottery,an
online international Sweepstakes Program held on Friday 7th
October,2005.Your email address attached to ticket/serial number
IE6098-05,with serial number IE535-29 drew the lucky
numbers:1-15-24-37-42-50 (bonus
no.33), WithRef. Number: IES/376O05/77, Batch Number: 05/507/IES360 and
subsequently won the lottery in the 1st category.You have therefore been
approved to claim a total sum of £880,000.00 (Eight hundred and eighty
thousand pounds sterling) in cash credited to file ISPR/7563409218/05. This
is from a total cash prize of £8,680,770.00 shared amongst the first nine
(9) lucky Winners in this category.

All participants for the online version wereselected randomly from World
Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from over 154,000
Unions, Associations and Corporate Bodies listed online. In view of this,
your £880,000.00 (Eight hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling) would
be released to you by any of our payment offices.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information
confidential till your claims is processed and your money remitted to you in
whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize. This is part of our
precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this
program. Deductions from WINNING SUM are not allowed until WINNING SUM has
been handed over to the winner. Please be warned. To file for your claim,
please contact our fiduciary agent:

Silver British Promotions
P O Box 657
London, United Kingdom
(Customer Services)
Email:fundsaccreditationdept@walla.com

All prize money must be claimed in ten working days.After this date,all
funds will be returned as unclaimed.NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary
delays and complications, please always remember to quote your reference and
batch numbers in every correspondence with your claims
agent.Furthermore,should there be any change of your address, do inform your
claims agent
as soon as possible.Please include your private telephone and fax numbers
while replying. Congratulations once again from our team of staff and thank
you for being part of our promotional program.


Sincerely,
Mrs. Helen Woods
Lottery Coordinator
----------------------------------------------------------
Note: Anybody under the age of 17 is AUTOMATICALY DISQUALIFIED and Any
BREACH of CONFIDENTIALITY on the part of the WINNERSwill result to
disqualification.



--

Anti-fraud resources: