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: john smith <johnsmith_life@yahoo.ca>
Reply-To: johnsmith_2@myway.com
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:39:31 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: RE: VICTIMNAME


Dear Sir,
I am John Smith an Attorney to Late Mr. Mark Hammer a foreigner and one
of the Leaders in the fishing Industry. Late Mr.Mark Hammer has an
account with Afribank which he set up in 2003. He died in 2004 in UK. I
received a memo early this year from the international remittance unit
of the Bank for an interview about 22M USD that belongs to my client
Late Mark Hammer. The Bank informed me on their policy to Freeze the
same account and redirect his funds 22M USD back to Afribank treasury
because they saw no NEXT OF KIN in his entire file within the bank and
his account has been dormant for many years which is against the policy
of Bank's.

I am contacting you because of the need to involve a foreigner with
foreign account as the foreign beneficiary to that fund. I have resolved
to share the money in this ratio: 45% for me, 30% for you , 20% for the
remittance manager in the bank who has agreed to guide us for the
success of our objectives and 5% for expenses we might incurred in the
processing of this transaction. Note that this transaction is total,and
as such, the nature of your business does not matter in the completing
of this transaction.

FOR US TO PROCEED:

I will need your full name and address, or any name that you might want
us to use in processing the documents of fund release in your favour,and
the name of the bank where you might want it processed and
transferred/remitted into. I will also need your telephone and fax
numbers for oral communications too. I will start the processing of all
the legal documents to back up this claim since i am the Attorney to the
late account owner, so i have every detail and there will be noting
difficult in completing this in few days, immediately you send all the
required information. I will give you further details on the entire
process when i receive your positive response. On your readiness for us
to proceed.

Regards
John Smith Esq.
(Legal Practitioners).


---------------------------------
Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos

Anti-fraud resources: