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: "Evans Efedua" <evasnty@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:53:55 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: *****SPAM***** Urgent Response


Spam detection software, running on the system "radius2.beosms.com", has
identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message
has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or label
similar future email. If you have any questions, see
the administrator of that system for details.

Content preview: Dear Friend, My name is Mr. Evans Efedua, I am the Manager,
Credit and Foreign bills of Regent Bank Plc. I am contacting you of a business
transfer, of a huge sum of US$15.5M (Fifteen Million Five Hundred Thousand
United States Dollars) from a deceased account. Though I know that a transaction
of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring
you that everything has been taken care off, and all will be well at the
end of the day. I decided to contact you to the urgency of this transaction.
[...]

Content analysis details: (17.2 points, 8.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
-1.8 ALL_TRUSTED Passed through trusted hosts only via SMTP
3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 99 to 100%
[score: 1.0000]
2.8 TVD_PH_SUBJ_URGENT TVD_PH_SUBJ_URGENT
2.3 FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD 'From' yahoo.com does not match 'Received' headers
1.3 MISSING_HEADERS Missing To: header
1.6 URG_BIZ BODY: Contains urgent matter
1.5 MILLION_USD BODY: Talks about millions of dollars
2.7 DEAR_FRIEND BODY: Dear Friend? That's not very dear!
1.2 ADVANCE_FEE_2 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)
1.4 ADVANCE_FEE_3 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)
0.6 ADVANCE_FEE_4 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)



Anti-fraud resources: