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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: "Albert Lin" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <albertlin537@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2012 10:08:32 +0530
Subject: VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU GET BACK TO ME IMMEDIATELY

Hello there,

I am sending you this email not because I want to waste any minute of your precious time but because of the importance of the fact that I really need to get in touch with someone concerning this issue. Please be assured that this will be to our immense mutual benefit.
Although I have never met you before or know you personally but I am compelled to write you this e-mail to introduce myself and introduce the reason of my contacting you although you might find what I will say rather strange or against your personal morals but if you take some time to get to know me I promise this will surely be worth your time.

My name is Albert Lin, 44 years old bank auditor, married with 3 kids, I am a Malaysian citizen. I work for CIMB bank which is one of the major banks in Malaysia. The reason why I am contacting you is rather a sensitive issue and I must go straight to the point. I have discovered in the course of my auditing jobs this particular account that has been left dormant since the past 5 years. The account belonged to an American citizen Anthony Zaremba, I have alerted the bank regarding this and 2 reminders were sent to the forwarding address found in the account opening forms, but strangely there was no reply and no one ever came forward and I have watched this account with keen interest over the years but no one is coming forward for this account valued at $5,750.000.00 ( Five Million Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand United States Dollars )

Now after the first quarterly audit of this year 2012, the bank board of directors have opened negotiations to declare the money "un-claimed" and hand it over to the Malaysia government or revert it to the bank's treasury as is the law in Malaysia and this is the reason why I am contacting you. I do not want to see the fruit of this man's labour to go into the hands of these corrupt politicians and greedy bank officials who I know will only use the money to buy expensive cars whereby there are many less privileged people in the society who are hungry and jobless.

In this regard Sir, with your permission of course, I can present you to the bank as the next of kin to Anthony hence the beneficiary to these funds and the funds will be handed over to you, wired to any account of your choice or any other means you will prefer and when the funds get to you we share 80% of it and donate 20% to charity to clear our conscience of any guilt. Please note that this is the best thing to do as our sharing the money amongst the two of us will ensure part of this money get to some people who are really in need of help but if these funds go to the government or bank directors i can assure you it will never be utilized in a proper way.

Please get back to me if you are interested to walk this noble course with me but if in any way this e-mail offends your personal morals I implore you to delete it both from your computer and from your memory and never reveal it to any third party.

I will wait for your reply so we can proceed and here is my personal phone number should you want to call me +60102462590.
Yours faithfully
Albert Lin
Chief Auditor
CIMB Bank
170 Jalan Sungai Bssi
57100 WP Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

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