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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.

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Fraud email example:

From: "Ray Atima" <ray101@tiscali.it>
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2005 08:01:31 -0800
Subject: Do This With Me

Dear partner,

I am sorry to really take you by surprise on this.

I am Ray Atima, I work in the foreign payment section of the Federal
Ministry
of Finance.I am presently working on claim of Foreign contractors whose
applications were destroyed when fire gutted the The Federal Secretariat
in
Ikoyi, Lagos Nigeria.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/0,,2-11_1495101,00.html

I need you to provide an account to which we cantransfer the sum of
Twenty
Million US dollars. As I can front you / company as one of the affected
contractors.

As long as there is enough evidence to back your claim the money will be
paid
to you and I am on ground here to process the necessay documents to back
up
this claim. I just need you to do this with me, as civil servents in my
ministry are not allowed to operate offshore accounts.

Please get back to me with the following details if you are interested
in this
proposal.
1. Full names
2. Telephone and Fax numbers
3. contact addresss
4. Company name if any

These will enable me to process the necessary documents that will enable
my
ministry make the transfer. You will be rewarded with 40% of the said
amount.
We will discuss this further in subsequent correspondence.

The business is 100% safe, risk and failure proof provided you treat it
with
utmost confidentiality and priority as I intend to destroy all the
relevant
approval documents relating to the project once the payment is released
to
you / company to avoid any trace to you or us in future. It does not
matter
whether you/company does contract project as a transfer of powers will
be
secured in favour of you, also your area of specialization is not a
hindrance
to the successful execution of this transaction. I have reposed my
confidence
in you and hope that you will not disappoint me as I intend to conclude
the
transfer within 14 working days

Regards

Ray Atima

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