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: "mahim ali" <mahim4040@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: mahim_ali060@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 03:39:36 +0000
Subject: STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

Dear Friend,

I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise as we never met before.
I am the bill and exchange manager in African Development Bank.

I Hoped that you will not expose or betray this trust and confident that I
am about to repose on you for the mutual benefit of our both families.

I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of $12.3million
immediately to your account. The money has been dormant (in-active) for 9
years in our Bank here without any body coming for it.

I want to release the money to you as the nearest person to our deceased
customer (the owner of the account) who died a long with his supposed next
of kin in an air crash since August 1997.

I don't want the money to go into our Bank treasury as an abandoned fund, so
this is the reason why I contacted you, so that my Bank will release the
money to you as the nearest person to the deceased cutomer.

Please we would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete if
you are not interested.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send you full details on how the
business will be executed and also note that you will have 40% of the above
mentioned amount if you agree to help me execute this business.

Thanks and waiting for your urgent response,

Mr. Mahim Ali.
African develoment Bank,Burkina Faso-West Africa

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


--

Anti-fraud resources: