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: "michael" <michaelrabade@libero.it>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:42:58 -0400
Subject: simple business

Dear Friend,                                                 
My name is Mr.Michael  Rebade; I am an auditor with Instituto National De La Seguridad Socia (INSS) in Valencia Spain.
I know this letter will come to you as a surprise but I want you to understand that my contacting you is divine because I want us to do this business deal together.
I got your contact from international brochure and decided to contact you for this simple business deal considering the fact that your assistance will help in the actualization of this great deal.
I am contacting you concerning a fund valued $13,000.000.00 (Thirteen Million US Dollars) deposited with our affiliate Security Company by our late esteemed customer and contractor residing in Iraq. He moved this money from Iraq to Spain for investment and deposited the fund with a prime Security Company here which I will give you the name and contact when I receive a response from you concerning your willingness to work with me in this project. He went back to Iraq to bring his entire family to Spain from Iraq but he died in a bomb blast with his entire family. 
Since I got the information about the bomb blast and the death of our customer, I felt bad because from my adequate investigation I gathered that all his family members were involved in the bomb blast there by living nobody to claim the above mentioned fund. Based on this, I am contacting you to act as the relative and next of kin to my late esteemed customer.
I will give you full informations and necessary documents of the fund which you will use to contact the Security Company and apply for the release of the fund to you as the relative and next of kin to the deceased customer. This business is risk free but demands high confidentiality.
Your country of origin does not have any problem with this project because people reside and nationalize in any country of one’s choice. Upon the successful release and transfer of this fund to you, we will share the money 60% for me and 40% for you and also be rest assured that we will claim this money successfully without any problem because I am in the financial system here and I know what is obtainable.
Finally, be mindful that nobody here knows that I contacted you for this business deal. To this effect, you should please keep this letter confidential whether you are interested or not because if anybody here discovers that I gave you this information I will definitely lose my job and enter into a big problem.
You should signify your interest to do this business deal by contacting me on the stated telephone, Fax or Email.  Though am sceptical about using email for security reasons because internet is no safer these days. This business deal will not last more than 14 days you signify your interest to work with me to actualize this golden opportunity.
Tel.+34634 1732 72/fAX +34911 5710 11 Email:michaelrebade@terra.es.
I anticipate your immediate response.
Sincerely Yours, 
Mr michael Rebade

Anti-fraud resources: