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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: "usuman ahmed" <drusumanahmed1@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: drusumanahmed1@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:27:17 +0100
Subject: MY FRIEND

AUDIT AND ACCOUNTS UNIT
ECO BANK OF TOGOLEISE
ECO BANK HOUSE,LOME- TOGO.
E-MAIL drusumanahmed1yahoo.com

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Dr Usman Ahmed i am a staff of bills and exchange at the
foreign remittance Department, of Eco Bank Of Togolise
plc.

I am writing following the impressive information
about you from our chambers of commerce and industry.

In my department, we discovered an abandoned the sum of
TWELVE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS
only, in an account that belongs to one of our foreign
customers who died along with his entire family in
November 2002 in a plane crash.

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 as a
next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in
our banking guidelines.

Unfortunately we learn that his supposed next of kin or
relations died along with him at the crash leaving nobody
behind! for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery
that I and other officials in the department now decided
to make business with you, that is, to release the money
to you as the next of kin or relation to the decease since
nobody is fronting for the money and we do not want this
fund to go into disbursement account as unclaimed bill.
The banking law and guidelines here stipulates that if
such money remained unclaimed after six years the money
will be transferred into federal government account as
unclaimed fund.

The request of a foreigner as next of kin in this business
is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a
foreigner and an indigene can not stand as a next of kin
to a foreigner. We agreed that 30% of this money will be
for you as the foreign partner and 10% for expenses
incurred during the cost of remittance. Therefore to
enable immediate transfer of the fund to you as arranged,
you should contact me with my private e-mail adress
drusumanahmed1yahoo.com immediately for further briefing:

I look forward to hearing from you soon.Include your phone
and fax numbers when repling

Dr Usman Ahmed
Best regards.
Foreign Remittance



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