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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: "Kelvin Oshodi" <koshodi11@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: kelvinoshodi11@netscape.net
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:56:51 -0600
Subject: Goodday My Friend

From The Desk Of Dr. Kelvin Oshodi

"Strictly Confidential"
We are members of a special committee on project
implementation of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC). This committee is principally
concerned with contract awards and approval. With our
positions, We have successfully secured for ourselves
the sum of twenty one million, five hundred thousand
united states dollars (us$21.5m). My colleagues and I
during the course of our official assignment awarded
series of contracts to foreign firms on agreed 5%
commission or profit on their contract sum. However
the 5% commission which amounted to us$21.5m after
audit report is left unclaimed in the floating account
of my company [NNPC]. This contract in question were
for the supply of petro - chemical equipment and
computers to my company the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] in 2000. The contractors
have executed their project as specified in the
contract agreement and were paid accordingly.

Recently, the new civilian government started paying
off all the indebted foreign contractors to my company
that executed contracts as far back as 2000 - 2003 in
order to launder a good image of their government
before the united nation. Consequent to this
development, we consider this a great opportunity for
us to carryout the transfer of these funds to a safe
account overseas which we believe you will be in a
position to help us in transferring these funds
[us$21.5m] into your nominated account.

It has been agreed that the owner of the account will
be compensated with 20% of the remitted funds, while
we keep 75%, and 5% will be set aside to offset
expenses and pay the necessary taxes. All modalities
of this transaction have been worked out and once
started will not take more than 10 working days, with
your full support. This transaction is 100% risk free.

If this proposal satisfies you, please reach us only
by email for more information.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Kelvin Oshodi.


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