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"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.

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

Fraud email example:

From: "Maulol Peter Acolatse" <meridiankross@voila.fr>
Reply-To: <meridian001@voila.fr>
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:48:03 -0000
Subject: Your urgent info.

Dear Sir,

With full corporate and personal responsibility, I would like to propose to you as follows:

As Investment banker, I was invited by the late President of the Republic of Guinea, on March 16, 2005 when he confidentially deposited the sum of USD$3,500,000.00 and 82,700 Carats of Rough Diamonds in an Escrow/Call Account with my Bank. President Conte did not leave any beneficiary for this deposit and that made it impossible for the bank to contact any of his Family or associate to claim the deposit after his death. Having waited for two Years after his death, I decided to move the deposit into a suspense account without beneficiary and then find a reliable Partner in your Country who can assist me to withdraw this fund as depositor.

As an officer of the Bank I cannot directly claim/withdraw this deposit, thus I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive it into your bank account and we shall officially apply for the conversion of the diamonds into cash by the I C Bank based on current World Gem prices. I have already submitted an audited approved end of the year Report for the year 2007/8 to our Bank head office, that deposit will never be discovered! I offer you 50% of the total deposit while 50% shall be for me.

Let me stress here that there are practically no risks involved in this transaction. The transaction will be done via bank-to-bank transfer. And to protect ourselves, we need to keep the transaction "entre nous" I will send you details of the process which we shall apply to legally transfer the deposit into your Bank Account anywhere in the World, once I receive your confirmation.

Please include you detail contact information to enable direct communication following.

Best Regards,
Maulolo Peter Acolatse
Tel: +233-21814092

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