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: MARTIN PITTS <martinpitts_claimsdept@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 19:26:14 +0100 (BST)
Subject: CLAIMS PROCEDURES!











MICROSOFT AWARD TEAM
Microsoft Corporation
#1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052.

Ticket Number: 8390281
Serial Number: 3422/06
Lucky Numbers: 4-7-10-33-35-49
Dear Winner,

CONGRATULATIONS!
The receipt of your reply is acknowledged.The sponsors/promoters of the lottery bonanza of rewarding the internet users and email address owners wish to congratulate you and formally inform you of winning 500,000.00GBP(Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds) in the last email-lottery draw organized by THE MICROSOFT LOTTERY BOARD.







You should be aware that your email address in addition to millions of companies and individual email addresses were extracted with a lotto software product and the addresses were scrutinized with a ballot system and after the processes,your email address was selected amongst others in the only organised category of 500,000:00GBP(Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds) Be informed that your winning prize has a hardcover insurance policy that makes it impossible to make any deduction of any kind, until your parcel is finally delivered to your designated address by the courier firm.

You are to carefully resend back to this office via email your personal datas as well as an attached copy of your identification to enable us commence your claim process and to ensure that we are dealing with the right owner and user of the EMAIL ADDRESS that has won this lump sum of money.

This is a fundamental process following the instruction that prize money should be claim at the ernest possible time by the winners. The various processes of delivery will be communicated to you upon request.

We look forward to your prompt response;

should you have any questions,do not hesitate to contact us. Thanks for your understanding.


Regards,
Martin Pitts. Claims Officer,
For MS WORD LOTTO UK



---------------------------------
Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Tryit now.

Anti-fraud resources: