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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: "Macdonald Gerald" <macdon_gerald@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 03:07:45 +0000
Subject: REVERT TO ME ON THIS ISSUE

Dear Friend

Good day to you. I may have to trouble your sense of personal achievement
and reward for an opportunity properly taken advantage of.

I work for Allied Irish Bank (AIB) here in Dublin, Ireland. I am a
relationship officer and one of my biggest customers was Isam Mattar, a
Lebanese, now deceased. He had a fixed time deposit with my Bank which has
matured and remains unclaimed till now. It runs into the value of 24
Million Euro.

I knew him so well since he was one of my most performing accounts. However
the account opening package of Isam Mattar does not contain any next of kin
and neither has it been possible to trace any relative of Isam Mattar. My
personal know of Isam Mattar and experience in the banking industry reveals
that such monies remain recycling in the monies of the bank until finally
they may be dissipated as unclaimed funds.

A colleague of mine who works in the Legal Department, and particularly in
the Inheritance Unit has agreed with me that I clandestinely look for
someone who will assist us to have the money legally claimed and moved out
of our bank for our joint purpose. We are in house members and have put in
place effective measure to ensure that this works out smoothly. We need you
to front as the beneficiary of the estate of Isam Mattar. This is simple and
will be done at our end. We will employ the services of an external
solicitor to help prepare letters of probate which in your favour as the
beneficiary of Isam’s investment. This will be registered in our country’s
High Court Probate Division and then forwarded to our Bank and you will thus
be given access to the money as the owner.

This is sure as we have put in measures to ensure that this works without
any hitch. Assurances are given you to this effect, we have our job to
protect and cannot afford to fail.
When you have safely secured same and moved the money to your given account
we shall then meet and have the booty shared. We have decided that your
share shall be 30% while we shall take home 35% each. Kindly take note of
this to avoid ant future dispute on how to distribute the facility among us.
I think this is an open show of magnanimity, we have given too much
concession and will not go a single Euro beyond this.

If you are capable of putting your time and efforts towards the
actualization of this, kindly reach me and let us work together to get
achieved. Be sure to reach me on my yahoo account:macdongerald164@yahoo.ie

Please have every second thought and be sure if you are interested before
you contact me, don’t just contact me because of the amount involved but
please only do so if you know you are genuinely interested and will give it
the required commitment for the good of us all.
Have a very wonderful day.
Yours truly,
MacDonald Gerald


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