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

Fraud email example:

From: "john michael" <johnmichael001@sympatico.ca>
Reply-To: johnmichael@k.ro
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:14:30 +0000
Subject: Please contact me

>From the desk of:
John Michael,
Auditor General Natwest Bank Group,
Caryle House, Carlyle Rd, Cambridge,CB4 3DH,UK
Contact Email: - johnmichael@k.ro
Dear Friend,

I am Mr. John Micheal,Auditor General Natwest Bank Group UK. I am writing
following an opportunity in my office that will be of immense benefit to
both of us.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of £20.5million British
Pounds Sterling (Twenty million five hundred thousand British Pounds) in an
account that belongs to one of our foreign customers Late Mr. Morris
Thompson an American who unfortunately lost his life in the plane crash of
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 which crashed on January 31 2000, including his
wife and only daughter. You shall read more about the crash on visiting this
site.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/

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 learnt 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 six 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 me and my colleagues. We will disburse the funds
according to the percentages indicated above once this money gets into your
account. Please be honest to me and trust is our watchword in this
transaction.

Note this transaction is confidential and risk free. As soon as you receive
this mail you should contact me by return mail. Please note that all
necessary arrangement for the smooth release of these funds to you has been
finalized. We will discuss much in details when I do receive your response.

if you are interested in this project contact me for further directives.

Contact Email: - johnmichael@k.ro

Best regards,
Mr. John Michael.


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