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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: "George Craige" <georgecraige@msn.com>
Reply-To: georgecraige@walla.com
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 03:57:54 +0000
Subject: Your Urgent Reply Is Needed

Mr George Craig
Prudential plc
Laurence Pountney Hill
London EC4R 0HH
Website:http://www.prudential.co.uk/

I am Mr George Craig, Branch Manager Prudential plc Laurence Pountney Hill,
London..I have an urgent and very profitable business proposition for you
that should be handled with extreme confidentiality.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of £20.5million British
Pounds Sterling (Twenty million five hundred thousand British Pounds) in an
account that belongs to one of our foreign customers Late Mr.
Morris Thompson an American who unfortunately lost his life in the plane
crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 which crashed on January 31 2000,
including his wife and only daughter. You shall read more about the crash
on visiting this site.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/ and
http://www.nativefederation.org/history/people/mThompson.html

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next
of kin or relatves to come over and claim his money because we cannot
release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the
deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines.

Unfortunately I learnt that his supposed next of kin being his only daughter
died along with him in the plane crash leaving nobody with the knowledge of
this fund behind for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I
and two other officials in this department now to make business with you and
release the money to you as the next of kin or beneficiary of the funds for
safety keeping and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and
we don’t want this money to go back into Government treasury as unclaimed
bill.

This sum £20.5million of has been carefully moved out of my bank to a
Financial and Security Company for safekeeping.

The banking law and guidelines here stipulates that such money remained
after six years the money will be transferred into banking treasury as
unclaimed funds.

I contacted to assist in claiming the money in the Financial and Security
Company where it is presently lodged.

We agreed that 35% of this money will be for you as foreign partner,while
the balance will be for me and my colleagues. I will visit your country for
the disbursement according to the percentages indicated above once this
money gets into your account. Please be honest to me and
trust is our watchword in this transaction.

Note this transaction is confidential and risk free. As soon as you
receive this mail you should contact me by return mail. Please note that all
necessary arrangement for the smooth release of these funds to you has been
finalised. We will discuss much in details when I do receive your response.

Please if you are interested in this project contact me for further
directives.

Best regards

Mr George Craig


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