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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: (sent from abused email account)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:05:56 -0800
Subject: ****SPAM(15.3)**** ACCRUED INTEREST NOTIFICATION.


Spam detection software, running on the system "www.telnorm.com.mx", 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
postmaster for details.

Content preview: ATTN;ORDERING BENEFICIARY, THIS IS TO LET YOU KNOW THAT=
A
HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY WAS DEPOSITED IN OUR BANK,THE ABBEY NATIONAL BANK =
PLC.,LONDON
IN YOUR FAVOUR BY THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT.THIS MONEY WAS RECENTLY TRAN=
SFERED
TO A DIFFERENT ACCOUNT WITH A CHANGE IN BENEFICIARY AS AUTHORISED BY T=
HE
OFFICIALS OF THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA. [...]=20

Content analysis details: (15.3 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- ---------------------------------------------=
-----
3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 99 to 100%
[score: 1.0000]
0.1 RDNS_NONE Delivered to trusted network by a host with n=
o rDNS
1.9 SUBJ_ALL_CAPS Subject is all capitals
1.0 US_DOLLARS_3 BODY: Mentions millions of $ ($NN,NNN,NNN.NN)
1.3 MSOE_MID_WRONG_CASE MSOE_MID_WRONG_CASE
1.5 ADVANCE_FEE_2 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419=
)
1.1 UPPERCASE_75_100 message body is 75-100% uppercase
1.1 ADVANCE_FEE_3 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419=
)
0.8 ADVANCE_FEE_4 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419=
)
3.0 FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
-0.0 AWL AWL: From: address is in the auto white-list



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