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: "Isaac Moore" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <isaacmoore01@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 16:24:26 -0300
Subject: Can You Partner With Me?

Hello.
 
Before l proceed, l must make an apology for this unsolicited letter to you, l am conscious that this is certainly not a preferrable way of approach to foster a relationship of trust but because of the circumstances and urgency surrounding this claim l decided to reach you via this media to help secure the funds left behind by a crude sales license owner, to avoid it being confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources of Sao Tome and Principe.
 
I am a member of staff of the National Petroleum Agency (NPA) of Sao Tome and Pricipe. I assisted a foreigner with the registration of a crude sales License in my country and after operating it for about four and half years she was ill and later confirmed that she passed on.
 
The NPA confirmed a payment of about $14.3 Million United States Dollars as pay-out commission for the crude License on on June 11th 2010. Unfortunately, she is not alive to receive her pay-out commission and all effort to contact her next of kin has proved unsuccessful. I decided to reach you, to present you as the beneficiary to the late owner,s commission since I have all the necessary information to do so.
 
Once presented as the beneficiary of the company, we shall earn the commission and it will be shared between us in the ratio that we shall agree on. We can decide to also start operation with the license if you agree to partner with me.I will gladly appreciate your understanding and keen interest to be part of this partnership.
 
Faithfully yours,
Isaac Moore

Anti-fraud resources: