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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)
Reply-To: dr_anisul_masari1961@yahoo.fr
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:53:00 +0200
Subject: Urgent and call for more clarification @00226 78050119


Dear Friend ,

I am the head of Accounts and Audit Department of Bank of Africa,
Ouagadougou . I decided to contact you after a careful thought that you may
be capable of handling this business transaction which I explained below;

In my department, I discovered an abandoned sum of $17.5m US dollars
(seventeen million, five hundred thousand US dollars). In an account that
belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family
in 2002 in a plane crash.

Since i got information about his death, The bank have been expecting his
next of kin to come over and claim his money because The fund cannot be
released unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the
deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately I learnt
that his supposed next of kin(his son and wife) died alongside with him at
the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.



It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business
proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin (I want to
present you as his business associate )to the deceased for safety and
subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don't want this
money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.


The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained
Unclaimed after seven years, the money will be transferred into the Bank
treasury as unclaimed fund.

The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by
the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkina be cannot stand as
next of kin to a foreigner .

I agree that 35% of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in
respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 % will be set aside for
expenses incurred during the business and 55% would be for me . There after
I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages
indicated.



Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your account as
arranged, you must apply first to the bank as next of kin of the deceased
customer. Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the
text of the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this
transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear
as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.

I expect that you contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter,
and send me your personal data including your recent passport before i send
you the application which you will fill and send to the bank for
continuation of this transaction.

Hoping to hear from you immediately.

Yours faithfully,
Dr Anisul Masari.
Accounts & Audit Department,
Bank of Africa.
Nb. gives me your telephone and fax numbers for easy communication with
you.

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