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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: "ruffin caliso" <calisoruffin01@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: ruffinm@latinmail.com
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 14:25:49 +0000
Subject: partnership








Good day to you.

I am Marie A. Ruffin, a citizen of the United State of America and a staff
of the United Nations (UN), I know that this mail will be of great surprise
to you. I got your e-mail address from the Internet as I was soliciting for
a partner who will work with us. Please, do not see this mail as one of
those stories from some Africans of which I have received such too.

In recent times, there have been conflicts all over the world especially in
the Middle East, which has been of top concern to the UN. I happen to be one
of the officials assigned to Iraq. I also played a great part in seeing that
Afghanistan is been rebuilt and those casualties, especially children are
well taken care of. During this period, my partners and I were able to
secure some amount of money amounting to Thirty Million United State Dollars
($30M), which was moved to Europe. Moving this fund was easy because of the
connections my partners had. Now that things have settled, we want to move
the money out of the deposit company where it is deposited.

We are contacting you to work with us because we are civil servants and
cannot do it alone. The presence and participation of a neutral person is
needed to achieve this transaction hence my contacting you. Note that all
the relevant documents will be in place for this transaction to be hitch
free. For your participation, you will be getting 20% of the total sum.

This transaction will take not more than fourteen (14) banking/working days
to be finalized from the day of commencement. Treat with to secrecy, as we
will not want a blackmail or media scandal. You are the only person I
contacted for this transaction and will hope to get your reply ASAP for
further correspondence via my Private email ID. (ruffinm@latinmail.com)

Yours faithfully,
Marie A. Ruffin (MRS).


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