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: Mercy Asrad <mercyasrad@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:41:28 +0100 (BST)
Subject: NICE TO MET YOU DEAR,


Hello dear,
My name is miss Mercy, nice looking young girl never married, I picked interest on you after going through your short profile at (yahoo list), then i feel like dropping this massage to you, please i will like to know more about you and if you can mail an email to my mail address i will give you my picture because i have something important which i will like to share in common with you if only you can give me your interest. please don't think otherwise just mail me when i explain to you, take care,
Yours Mercy.

Anti-fraud resources: