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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: "Frank Attah" <frankattah@teamfrankattahlawfirm.org>
Reply-To: frankchambers@organizer.net
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 03:08:45 +0000
Subject: ACT AS NEXT OF KIN

IN THE OFFICE OF FRANK ATTAH
THE MANAGER OF BILL EXCHANGE FOREIGN OPERATION
UNITED BANK OF AFRICAN PLACE PLOT 2 OYIN JOLAYEMI STREET,
VICTORIAN ISLAND LAGOS NIGERIA.

Attn:Partner


I am the manager of bill and exchange Foreign Operations Department of UNITED BANK OF NIGERIA.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of (7.4million dollars Seven million Four hundred thousand United States Dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along side with his entire family in November 1999 in the ADC plane crash.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his relation 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 we learnt that all his immediate family members died along with him at the plane crash leaving nobody with the knowledge of this fund behind for the claim since the account is his private account.It is
therefore upon this discovery that I and two other officials in this department now decided to make business with you and release the money to you as the next of kin to the deceased for safety keeping and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go back into Federal Government account as unclaimed bill.

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 and will further be handed over to government.The request of a foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Nigerian cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.

We agreed that 35% of this money will be for you as foreign partner,while the balance will be for my colleagues and 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. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of the funds to you as arranged, you must apply first to my bank as next ofkin of the deceased.

Upon receipt of your response I will send to you a text of the application with the name of the deceased and his country and other information about him.I will take care of the expenses required to process the relevant papers in your name. Note this transaction is confidential and risk free,

I shall await your urgent feedback.

Best regards

FRANK ATTAH.

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