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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: "Mrs. Shelia Baldree" <sheliabaldree@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: sheliabaldree@rocketmail.com
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2012 19:43:53 +0900 (JST)
Subject: TREAT VERY URGENT

Compliment of the season, I am Mrs. Shelia Baldree from France, I am 58 years old, I am deaf and suffering from a long time cancer of the breast from, all indications, my condition is really deteriorating and it is quite obvious that I can't work or do any stressful thing, according to my doctors they have advised me that may not live for the next three (3)months, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage. I was brought up from a motherless babies home and was married to my late husband for twenty years without a child My Husband (Morgan Baldree) died in a fatal motor accident, before his death we were true believers. Since his death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and deposited all the sum of $19.6 million dollars with a security company in United Kingdom. Presently, this money is still with them and the management just wrote to me as the true owner of the funds to come forward to receive the money for keeping it so long, which now attract demurage charges, as the security fees paid by me have expired, or rather I should issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf since I can not come over because of my illness, or else they will get it confisticated. So instead of getting it confiscated I'll rather get someone who I can trust to receive the funds and utilize it according to my wishes. And the best part of it is, the security company also told me in the letter that they can have the consignment funds delivered to my approved next of kin in their house if within UK or if outside UK, then it can be transferred to his/her bank account. In the letter I got from the security company, based upon the most recent policy of the security firm stipulation aimed at protecting the interest of all foreign clients due for payment in the signing of the final fund release to the beneficiary, you are hereby requested to travel to the security firm payment office, there in UK, for the signing of the fund release order, which is vital and this act is to ensure the rightful release of funds as directed by me, because the the security company will not be held liable for any wrong release transfer/payment of funds thereafter. Presently, I'm with my laptop in the hospital in Monaco-France, where I have been undergoing treatment for my sickness. I am deaf and have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that I have only below 3 months to live. It is my last wish to see that this money is invested/donated to any organisation/buisness of your choice and distributed each year among the charity organizations, e.g. the poor homes, the motherless babies' home where I came from, the deaf homes, Mosques and churches etc . All I seek for is a God fearing person like you, who will carry out my last wishes and before I e.mailed you today I prayed and I believed that I am led to send you this mail. I am taking this decision now before I rest in peace because my time will soon be up. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the security company in UK. All I need from you is a confidential assurance that the funds when received by you will be used for the said purpose, Nowadays there are so much scams going on on the internet and it is difficult to trust but I don’t know why my spirit still approved me to e.mail you about this out of few e.mail addresses I have from the internet, yours was the only one that was approved for me to contact. But if your financial position is poor to fly down, I mean if you have no money for the mission, you can look for somebody around you that is capable of assisting you financially. Or you give the person's name, mobile telephone number and address to me in your next mail, so that I can give the Certificate of Deposit and introduce the person to the security company to collect the money on my behalf since you have no power to do that or you forget it, I will try and look for another person who can pay the demurrage charges, air ticket, meals and hotel bills etc, because I can't afford to loose the money just like that. I hope you understand. Waiting for your reply. Yours Faithfully, Mrs.Shelia Baldree.

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