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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: renard palmer <palmerrenard01@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:39:03 +0000
Subject: Hello..!!

Hello..


I am the head of Accounts and Audit Department of Bank of Africa,
Ouagadougou ,Burkina-faso .I decided to contact you after a careful
thought that you may be capable of handling this business transaction
which i explained below;

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $30.5m united
states dollars (Thirty million, five hundred thousand US dollars). In
an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along
with his entire family in 1998 in a plane crash. Since we got
information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to
come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless
somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as
indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt that
his supposed next of kin(his son and wife) died alongside with him at
the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim .It is therefore
upon this discovery that I have decided to make this business proposal
to you and release the money to you as the next of kin(I want to
present you as his business associate )to the deceased for safety and
subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and i don't want
this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.

The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money
remained Unclaimed for Ten years, the money will be transferred into
the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next
of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer
was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a
foreigner .i agree that 40% of this money will be for you as foreign
partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 % will
be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 50% would
be for me . There after I will visit your country for disbursement
according to the percentages indicated. Therefore to enable the
immediate transfer of this fund to your account as arranged, you must
apply first to the bank as next of kin of the deceased customer. Upon
receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of
the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this
transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom
of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.

I would want you to respond to my email immediately you read it for
more details.

Hoping to hear from you immediately.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Renard Palmer.
Accounts & Audit Department ,
Bank of Africa

Nb.also give me your telephone and fax numbers for easy communication with you.

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