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: From Helen Brown <nindya.s@ub.ac.id>
Reply-To: brownhelen909@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2020 22:14:14 +0100
Subject: (no subject)



--

Hello,
I am Helen Brown, First I would like to apologize for intruding
into your privacy, since we don't know each other and understand my
reason for contacting you. Please don't be angry with me. I wish to
have you as a friend,I really want to establish a true relationship
that may lead into a business partner or something else.

It is my pleasure meeting you, I hope all is well with you and how are
you enjoying your day? as i stated earlier , my name is Helen Brown, I
am US military officer currently in Libya now, and i will like to get
acquainted with you, I am loving, honest and caring person with a good
sense of humor, I enjoy meeting new people and knowing their way of
life, I enjoy watching the sea waves and the beauty of the mountains
and everything that nature has to offer.

My dear, i want you to know that we are being attacked by insurgents
every day and car bombs and during one of our rescue missions we came
across a safe box that contain huge amount of money that belongs to
the supporters of the overthrown government of Libya, which I believe
was money meant for buying weapons and ammunition, and it was agreed
by all Army officers present on that rescue mission that the money
will be shared among us and which we did.

Out of the total fund my share was $6,560,000 ( Six Million Five
Hundred and Sixty Thousand united states Dollars ) I am seeking your
assistance to evacuate my share of the money out of this country (
Libya ) to your own country for you to keep it safe on my behalf till
i come over to your country.

So i want you to assure me that if this money is been delivered to you
in your country that you are going to be trustworthy to keep the money
till when i will come to your country to meet you face to face to
collect the money back from you I it clear to me that you might be
scared of this proposal, but i want to let you know that i have made
solid arrangements with a security company and they have promised to
deliver the fund through diplomatic method to any of my choosing
destination.
This delivery is going to be handled legally by the security company
and there will not be any form of risk involved in the process and the
money will be packed safely in a truck case and the same case will be
delivered to you in your country.

I have decided to compensate you with 25% of the total money once
after the money is delivered to you, while the rest balance shall be
my investment capital in your country.

One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter
to a third party, if you do not want to be party to this business
please delete this letter from your email box to avoid any leakage of
this information and it will be dangerous to me based on my position
here.

I have chosen to contact you after my prayers and I believe that you
will not betray my trust nor thwart my dream, though you may wonder
why I am so soon revealing myself to you without formal introduction,
well, I will say that my mind convinced me that you are the true
person to help me in receiving and investing this Fund.

Note: I do not know how long we going to remain here and my fate since
I have survived two bomb attack here, which prompted me to search out
for a reliable and trustworthy person to help me receive and invest
the Fund, because I will be coming over to your home country to invest
and start a new life not as a soldier anymore.

I hope my explanation is very clear but if you need further
clarification just let me know and i will explain further I want to
let you know that here in the military zone we are not allowed to make
use of mobile phone, we only make use of radio message and email
communication so please let us continue communicating through email
for the mean time.

Conclusively, I wish you could send me a reply immediately in regard
to this proposal; your urgent reply will be highly appreciated.

I wait to receive your acceptable reply as soon as you read this letter.

Love from.
Helen

Anti-fraud resources: