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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: "charles soludo" <charles@charles-soludoo.com>
Reply-To: governor_of_centralbank_ng@yahoo.co.in
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 13:56:08 +0000
Subject: Very Urgent Sir

Dear Friend,
I am Prof. Charles Soludo, the executive governor of the (C.B.N) central
bank of Nigeria here in Nigeria .
In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of US$25 million dollars in
an account that belonging to one of our foreign customer Mr.Steve Wansor
from America who died along with his entire family on Monday,31 July, 2000
in a plane crash in paris.Please visit this site that is one of the evidence
the directors brought in other to swallow the money at the end of the day,
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm>"

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of
kin 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 laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his
supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash
leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery
that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the
money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and
subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this
money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill. The banking law and
guidline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after fours
years, the money will be transfered into the bank treasury as unclaimed
fund.

I agree that 40% of this money will be for you as a respect to the provision
of a foriegn account and 60% would be for me Thereafter, I will visit your
country for disbursement according to the percentage indicated Therefore, to
enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your designated bank account
,you must apply first to the bank as a relation or next of kin of the
deceased with a text of application that i will send to you,so i will like
you to send to me your private telephone and fax number for easy and
effective communication and location wherein the money will be remitted.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send you an email the text of the
application.I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is
hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all
required arrangements have been made for the transfer. You should contact me
immediately as soon as you receive this letter. Trusting to hear from you
immediately.
Regards,
Yours Faithfully,
Prof. Charles Soludo.
Email:governor_of_centralbank_ng@yahoo.co.in



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