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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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.
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. Erhard Holtmann" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <holtmann-erhard13@yandex.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 23:55:50 +0300
Subject: Greetings,
Greetings,
Your personality motivated me after going through your profile through the Email directory and i decided to contact you for a business proposal that will benefit both of us at the end.
Actually I am here searching for a person of honor I can trust and use for the claims in the Bank where I work and this business proposal is an inheritance claim which I want you to act as the next of kin to our bank late customer Mr Said Nasser Al Mahrooqian who was killed with his family during the Late president Muammar Gaddafi crisis in Libya and he left a deposit of 15,Million USD in his account with our HSBC bank here in Turkey and since after his death no one has come for the claim of his fund deposited with our bank. So I am contacting you to help me stand as the next of kin to the late customer and put claim over this inheritance as his far distance relation and provide bank account information where our bank will transfer his deposit.
Mr. Erhard Holtmann
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Anti-fraud resources:
