joewein.net   joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days
  jwSpamSpy

Home
About Us
Spam
419/Nigeria
Fraud
Contact

"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.

Click here to report a problem with this page.

 

 

Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: mickelsonmo58@pnetmail.co.za
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 14:46:21 +0200
Subject: confidential

Dear sir/madam,
compliments of the day. i got your email address from the south African
on line network without wasting your time let me go straight to the point.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $20million Us
dollars(Twenty-million Us dollars) in an account that belongs to
one of our foreign customers Late Mr. Thompson Morris an American who
unfortunately lost his life in the plane crash of Alaska Airlines
Flight261which crashed on January- 31- 2000, including his wife and
only daughter. You shall read more about the crash on visiting this site
which I got during my investigation;
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/ and
http://www.nativefederation.org/history/people/mThompson.html

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his
next of kin or relatives 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 I learned that his supposed next of kin being his only
daughter died along with him in the plane crash leaving nobody with the
knowledge of this fund behind for the claim. 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
or beneficiary of the funds for safety keeping and subsequent disbursement
since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go back
into Government treasury as unclaimed bill. The banking law and guidelines
here stipulates that such money remained after five years the money will be
transferred into banking treasury as unclaimed funds.

We agreed that 35% of this money will be for you as foreign partner,
while the balance will be for my colleagues and I. 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. Note this
transaction is confidential and risk free. As soon as you receive this mail you
should contact me through my e-mail address.
Please note that all necessary arrangement for the smooth release of
these funds to you as has been finalized.

HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.
YOURS,
MICKELSON MOSOLA.
TEL:27 73 061 1349.
EMAIL:mickelsonmo58@pnetmail.co.za

Anti-fraud resources: