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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: "Mervyn King" <k404_mervyn@msn.com>
Reply-To: k101_mavin@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:52:26 +0000
Subject: FROM MR MERVYN KING

Mervyn Allister King
Governor, Bank of England
+447031948768
UNITED KINGDOM
MODUSOPERANDI
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/overview.htm
Dear Friend,
I setenly apologies for not seeking your consent before directing this
proposal to
you.I am MR MERVYN KING the GOVERNOR ,BANK OF ENGLAND .What I have
for
you
is an urgent transaction that involves the sum of GBP30M.We
discovered
this
huge amount of fund in our corresponding bank deposited by our
foreign
customer who died
in an aircrash on November 15, 2000 with his family when Antonov
plane
crashes in Angola, leaving 41 dead .

{http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/12/11/angola.planecrash.ap/}.
All effort to get at the nearest next of kins to this man prove
abortive.
However,As the GOVERNOR of the BANK,I have decided with the concept
of
my
Deputy Governors ,{Sir Andrew Large and Rachel Lomax } in the office
and
with the assistance of a foriegner to use the documents in my office
and
transfer this money out of the country and share it among ourselves.
We
have
tried to get this money out of the bank but could not as it requires
an
assistance of a foriegner who will recieve this fund on our
behalf.It
is at
this point that we made up our mind to reach out to you ;so that you
could
assist us recieve this money in your our country as soon as it is
transfered.
We have agreed to make an offer of 30% of the total fund to you if
you
would
assist us in this transaction.I will like to state here that there is
no
form of risk involved in this transaction on your own side as a
foreigner even after the modusvivendi of this transaction.

.As soon as you confirmed that it has arrived to your location,I and
my
colleagues will be in your country to share it as we have stated
earlier on.
Get back to me as soon as possible through email or you can give me a
call
in my cell phone number for more clarification.Where you could not be
able
to call me,kindly forward your own number,I will be glad to call you
after
office work to explain this well to you and no jekyll and hyde but be
yourself.
Thanks and remain blessed.
KING


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