|
|
joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
|
|
"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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "MR.BERNARD OTTI." <bernardotti538@yahoo.pt>
Reply-To: "MR.BERNARD OTTI." <berot23@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:35:43 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Merry Christmas!
Good Sir.
I am contacting you from Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) I am chairman contract award and execution committee,There is this contract payment unclaimed with us this contract was done years back without being claimed as a result that the contractor dead of cancer without being paid and nobody had come for the claim of the contract payment as the contractors next of kin and the payment is floating in an Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) escrow account.
As chairman contract award and execution committee, me and members of my committee had agreed to transfer the contract payment to your account using your name as the next of kin to the late contractor for us to share, you will be getting 30% of the total money,while me and committee will have the remaining 70% of the money. every of the contract papers are with me and will be send to you as prove as soon as you indicate your interest to work with us. I must assure you of a very good business transaction for everything concerning this contract payment had been put in place to transfer the contract payment to your account and it will a successful transaction.
I will tell you more of it. if I have your response.
My best regards.
Mr Bernard Otti.
|
Anti-fraud resources:
