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.

 

 

Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "International Prize Award Department" <budhrani@gibtelecom.net>
Reply-To: da_berman01@live.nl
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 16:30:14 +0100
Subject: INTERNET DRAW RESULTS (YOUR EMAIL WON)




WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "A" WINNER ONLY

Attn Lucky Winner,

We are pleased to inform you that you have emerged a winner in
the annual draw of our Lottery International Programs. Your
email address was selected by our Electronic Random Selection
System (ERSS) from an exclusive list of 250,000,000 e-mail
addresses of individual and corporate bodies generated from an
internet resource database. No tickets were sold.

Your email address is identified with Batch Number: 444821545-
NL/2007 and Ticket Number: PP 3812 /2007-07 in Category "A" and
your claims portfolio is filed with Ref Number: MARKT 2310 TS
4512.You are therefore to receive a cash prize of
$2,500,000.00. (Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand United
States Dollars) from the total payout.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!.

Your prize award has been insured under a bonded depository
policy with your e-mail address, and will be transferred to you
upon meeting the claims requirements, statutory obligations,
verifications, validations and satisfactory report.

To file for the processing of your prize sum payment, you are
advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent
for category "A" winners with the information below:

*************************************
Name: Mr. David Berman
Tel: +31 647 283 937
Email: da_berman01(at)live.nl
(Direct all future correspondence to your claims agent
immediately.To contact him by email replace `at4 with @)
*************************************


You are advice to provide him with the following information:

Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:

NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days,
thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake.
Remember to quote your reference information in all
correspondence.

Yours Faithfully,
Catherine Winn Hodge
Lottery Co-ordinator.

PRIVACY STATEMENT

1. Personal and winning data provided by winners to THIS PROMO
remains known ONLY to the winner and INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONAL
PROGRAMS ORGANISATION.

2a. All e-mail addresses, contact information, photographs
and/or personal data of winners SHALL NOT be published or
disclosed on ANY public or in any other public place or via any
medium accessible to the public.
2b. All e-mail addresses, contact information, photographs
and/or personal data of winners SHALL NOT be disclosed to or
made available to any third party or agent outside the claims
office.

3. All e-mail addresses, contact information and/or personal
data of winners are kept in an isolated database server
protected from any external access using SSL locking on 6th
level binary phrase. This data is made accessible ONLY to MARKT
INTERNATIONAL CYBER LOTTERY staff and authorized agents
directly involved with the processing of winners claims.

4. Winners are advised to keep their winning information away
from public knowledge, in order to avoid any double claims,
impersonation or misrepresentation during the claims process.
MARKT INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONAL PROGRAMS will not be liable for
any misplaced claims as a owing to your negligence or
publishing of your winning information.



Anti-fraud resources: