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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.

Click here to report a problem with this page.

 

 

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

Fraud email example:

From: Joseph Thambo <richusman@postino.it>
Reply-To: jtambo@postino.it
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 12:43:34 +0000
Subject: Urgent (Mining & Quarry)



Dear Sir,

Good day, I am Mr. Joseph Thambo of the Mining & Quarry
Dept writing to seek your cooperation as our foreign
partner in re-profiling funds to the tune of
US$23,500,000.00 (Twenty Three Million, Five Hundred
Thousand United States Dollars) which we want invested
with your supervision in your country.
I apologize if this medium does not suit your personal
or business ethics, the said funds which we want you
to receive on our behalf were derived over time from
projects awarded to a foreign firm by the Department
of Mining and Quarry under the Ministry of Mineral
Energy Resources, presently the actual cost have been
paid to the original project executors leaving the
balance of the said amount which we have in principle
obtained approval to transfer overseas.
After the fall of apartheid my Government has
continuously strived to improve and maintain good
relationship with foreign Governments and
Non-Governmental financial
agencies by ensuring payments for all debts owed to
foreign contractors. As a matter of fact, the
Government has sponsored several trade delegations
overseas to improve and attract foreign investments to
South Africa.
I have the authority and approval of my partners
involve in this transaction to negotiate a suitable
compensation for your participation and have propose
30 %, while 10 % is earmarked for taxation and other
miscellaneous and 60 % for our selves. It does not
matter whether or not you own a company, we shall
guide you on what to do, and the basis will be that a
major company won a contract and subcontracted it to
you; more often, big trading companies and firms of
unrelated fields win contracts and subcontract them to
more specialized firms for execution.
It may interest you to know that a few years ago; a
similar transaction was carried out with one Mr.
Patrice Miller, The President of Crane International
Trading Corporation, at No. 135, East 57th Street,
28th Floor, New York, 10022, with Telephone No. (212)
308-7788 and Telex No. 6731680. After the agreement
between the partners, in which he was to take 15% of
the money, which was duly transferred into his account
only to be disappointed on arrival in New York as we
were reliably informed that Mr. Patrice Miller was no
longer on that address, while his Telephone and Telex
Numbers had been changed that is how we lost US$14.43M
to Mr. Patrice Miller.
This time around we need a more reliable and
trustworthy person or a reputable company to do
business with, hence this letter to you. If you are
interested and can prove yourself to be trustworthy
then you can be considered for this transaction.

I wait in anticipation of your fullest co-operation

Yours Faithfully,

MR. JOSEPH THAMBO.


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