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: "Dr.Alan Walters" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <alanwalters@accountant.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 02:48:08 -0700
Subject: IMMEDIATE ACTION FROM WORLD BANK COMPENSATION PAYMENT

Attention:
 
This is to bring to your notice that I am delegated from the World Bank to
compensate all the scam victims $4,000,000 USD (Four Million US Dollars)
each. You are listed and approved for this payment as one of the scammed
victims to be paid this amount, get back to us as soon as possible for the
immediate payments of your $4,000,000 USD compensations funds.
 
On this faithful recommendations, during World Bank last meetings held at
World Bank Headquarters in Washington Columbia, U.S.A, it was alarmed so
much by the world in the meetings on the lose of funds by various
individuals to the scams artists operating syndicates all over the world
today. In other to compensate victims, the World Bank Body in conjunction
with the UN is now paying victims of this operators $4,000,000 USD each in
accordance with the UN recommendations.
 
Respectfully
 
Dr.Alan Walters
Committee on Financial Crisis and
Executive Directors Administrative Matters
World Bank

Anti-fraud resources: