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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: "WILLIAMS THEMBA" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <williamsthemba@citromail.hu>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:42:33 -0500
Subject: CAN WE WORK TOGETHER ?

FROM MR. THEMBA WILLIAMS
Email:williamstemba@gmail.com

Good Day.

I am the Chief Accountant of South African First National Bank (FNB). I have used my Good Office to acquire the sum of US$15million as stated herein. The aforementioned Funds was in a deposit Account

There’s an account opened in this bank in 1998 and till 2014 nobody has operated on this account and after going through some old files in the records, I discovered that if I do not remit this huge fund urgently, it would be forfeited for nothing. This fixed deposit was for 10 years and upon maturity, I made effort to contact the client but could not reach him. He perished on the Monday, 31 July, 2000 plane crash in western Germany city of Moenchengladbach. No other person knows about this account or information concerning it.
The account has no other beneficiary and my extensive investigation has proven as well that his company does not know anything about this account and the money here with accrued interests is about USD$15,000,000.00( Fifteen Million Dollars).

View the web site bellow for more information on our late client, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm
Thank you and looking forward to a prosperous business relationship between us.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Williams Themba
Tel/Fax: +27-865993430

Anti-fraud resources: