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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: "OWEN JOHNSON" <owenjohnson@lampmail.com> (may be fake)
Reply-To: owenjohnson_77@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 17:18:15 +0100
Subject: HELLO







Hello friend,

Please bear with me for now. What I have may be of interest to you. It is a business proposal that will be beneficial to you and me.
I live in London, United Kingdom. I am 51 years old and I have been working in a bank in London for the past 17 years where I am presently an accounts manager.

I will give you my full details on your reply to this letter. My aim of contacting you is to solicit your co-operation and assistance based on one of the accounts under my management containing $27.700, 000 million (Twenty seven million seven hundred thousand dollars) which have remained dormant for the last Eleven months.

This account was owned by the late Mr. Teslim Ramzi Mohammed a Lebanese from Johaya town, following my investigation, I found out that he died on July 7th 2005 via a bomb blast that happened in the London and he left no children or next of kin

Here are the following websites for verification purpose
http://www.mapsofworld.com/mapinnews/london-blast.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4661059.stm

I will inform you more on how we can get the money in his account transferred into your account if you agree to co-operate with me on this on your reply to this mail. I will also give you more personal details of me and the transaction on your reply. Please treat this as confidential, urgent and of utmost importance.
Note:-Your country, telephone, mobile and fax number is important for urgent, easy and fast communication.



Sincerely
OWEN JOHNSON



Anti-fraud resources: