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: "Owen Williams" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <d5mtrucking@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 06:42:47 -0700
Subject: ATTENTION SIR/MA.

Dear Sir, We have actually been authorized by the United Nations secretary general and The President of the European Union, and the governing body of the monetary unit, to investigate the unnecessary delay of your inheritance fund, recommended and approved in your favour. During the course of our investigation, we discovered with dismay that your payment has been unnecessarily Delayed by corrupt officials of the Bank who are Trying to divert your money into their private accounts, to forestall this, security for your funds Was organized in the form of your personal Identification number (PIN) this will enable only you have direct Control over this fund, we will handle this payment ourselves to avoid the hopeless situation created by the Officials of the bank. We obtained an irrevocable payment guarantee on your Payment from the presidency. I'm directed to contact you by the UN secretary general to urgently confirm from you if actually you know one Dr. Frank F. Lee and is COLLEAGUES who claim to be your business associate/ partner in Nigeria. The said Dr. Frank F Lee is claiming to us that you are dead and he will like to change all the Information that you gave to us as our bona fide beneficiary. Below is the new banking information were he wish to have this fund transferred to:- Bank of America 6901 Northwest Expressway Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73132 ABA: 026009593 (International) ACCT. #:003042656833 ACCT: Name: FMS Investments Inc. Signatory: Floyd M. Shealy Swift Code: USBKUS44IMT. This development is coming now that the secretary general want to offset all your outstanding payments to all our legal foreign beneficiaries’ around the world in which your payment file was affected. As you may know, the total amount in your favor is a total sum of $18.5 Million U.S Dollars. We need to confirm from you if it's really true that you are dead and if we did not hear from you it automatically means that you are actually dead and the information passed to us by Dr. Frank F. Lee is correct. You are to contact me through my email address as soon as you receive this message so as to know the true position of things with you so that we would not make any mistake in remitting your out-standing payment to a wrong person/account. Your swift response will help this organization a lot. So if you like to receive your funds through this means kindly let us know by contacting this Office, Mr. Erick Brown. (Director) Dept. International System Committee Swift Card Payment Center, United Kingdom: EMAIL :(erick.browns@live.com) and also Please reconfirm the following information's, as stated below for security reasons. 1. Your Full Names: 2. Your mailing address: 3. Your phones number: 4. Your E-Mail Address: With our policy, rules and regulations of this organization am writing to notify you that after 72hours, i will return your funds and the necessary documents to our vault and close your file pending when Floyd M. Shealy of FMS Investments Inc. are ready to pick up your files. Yours faithfully, Mr. Owen Williams.

Anti-fraud resources: