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: "International Prize Award Department" <budhrani@gibtelecom.net>
Reply-To: da_berman01@live.nl
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:21:17 +0100
Subject: WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "A" WINNER ONLY



Attn Lucky Winner,

We are pleased to inform you that you have emerged a winner in
the annual draw of our Lottery International Programs. Your
email address was selected by our Electronic Random Selection
System (ERSS) from an exclusive list of 250,000,000 e-mail
addresses of individual and corporate bodies generated from an
internet resource database. No tickets were sold.

Your email address is identified with Batch Number: 444821545-
NL/2008 and Ticket Number: PP 3812 /2008-003 in Category "A"
and your claims portfolio is filed with Ref Number: MARKT 2310
TS 4512.You are therefore to receive a cash prize of
$2,500,000.00. (Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand United
States Dollars) from the total payout.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!.

Your prize award has been insured under a bonded depository
policy with your e-mail address, and will be transferred to you
upon meeting the claims requirements, statutory obligations,
verifications, validations and satisfactory report.

To file for the processing of your prize sum payment, you are
advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent
for category "A" winners with the information below:

*************************************
Name: Mr. David Berman
Tel: +31 647 283 937
Email: da_berman01(at)live.nl
(Ensure to contact your claims agent immediately. To contact
by email, replace at with @)
*************************************


You are advice to provide him with the following information:

Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:

NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days,
thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake.
Remember to quote your reference information in all
correspondence.

Yours Faithfully,
Catherine Winn Hodge
Lottery Co-ordinator.



Anti-fraud resources: