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: emmachop <emmachop@profes.net>
Reply-To: mamalido104@yahoo.it
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:04:41 +0200
Subject: Urgent Business Transaction

From:Mr.James Michael

Dearest,

I am Mr. James Michael,a manager in the Bills and Exchange at the Foreign Remittance Department of one of the leading banks in Ghana. I am writing this letter to ask for your support and cooperation to carry out this business opportunity in my department.

We discovered an abandoned sum of$12,500,000.00 (Twelve Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers (Late Mr.Morris Thompson)who died in an air crash along with his family (wife and only daughter) in Feb 4th, 2000 in an Alaska Airlines Flight 261 with other passengers on board. You can confirm this from the website below from publisher by
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/

Since we heard of his death, we have been expecting his next-of-kin to come over and put claims for his money as the heir,because we cannot release the fund from his account unless someone applies for claim as the next-of-kin to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines.Unfortunately, neither their family member nor distant relative has everappeared to claim the said fund.It is in our banking guideline that if none of the relatives come up to claim this fund after 6years of the death of the late customer,the fund will be regarded as an unclaimed bill and will be transferred to the bank's treasury account.

Upon this discovery, I and other officials in my department have agreed to make business with you and release the total amount into your account as the heir of the fund since no one came for it or discovered he maintained account with our bank,otherwise the fund will be returned to the banks treasury as unclaimed fund. We have agreed that our ratio of sharing will be as stated thus;30 % for
you as foreign partner,65 % for us the officials in my department and 5 % for the settlement of all local and foreign expences incurred by us and you during the course of this business.

Upon the successful completion of this transfer, I and one of my colleagues will come to your country and mind our share. It is from our 65% we intend to import Agricultural Machineries into my country as a way of recycling the fund.

To commence this transaction,we require you to immediately indicate your interest by a return e-mail with the following information:


1)Your private telephone and fax number
2.Your full name

Upon the receipt of this,i will inturn get back to you and give you the mordalities for the bank to approve you as the next of kin.Note also, this transaction must be kept because of its nature.I look forward to receiving your prompt response.

Best Regards

James Michael



Anti-fraud resources: