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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: Special Agent <fbi@fbi.com>
Reply-To: fbiinvestusa@aol.com
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:18:56 -0700
Subject: FBI, YOUR FUND IS ON HOLD, RESPOND?

New York Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 26 Federal Plaza, New York, New York 10278, USA. Tel/Fax: 1-213-403-5278,


Beneficiary,


This office of the FBI Albany division, New York are pleased to inform you that our cyber (internet) undercover transmission Crime-Detective Agent, followed for some time now and intercepted your payment worth millions of dollars, from an African Bank coming to you .


Since this payment is an overdue inheritance/contract payment bearing your name as the rightful owner (beneficiary). We wait to hearing from you because we have concluded investigation and are in doubt why this fund should come to you without our due official clearance papers showing that this your fund was not proceeds from crime in Africa.We need to clarify you with our payment release approval to make you sure you receive this fund legally. All names released by our cyber-crime detector are withheld for security reasons and if, you are expecting any unpaid overdue fund from Africa please respond.


The United State Judiciary will legally prove your ownership of this fund because we have seen from all our investigations that your name(s) was conspicuously written as the beneficiary of the above-mentioned fund. Though, we have investigated the act of your unwarranted spending to get this fund in the past.


Do contact our FBI instructional division here in New York with your full name (s), home address, telephone and fax numbers for clarification and issuance of proper legal papers, as we want to officially and legally release this fund to the rightful owner.


Security is our watchword with Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity.


Carl T. Ebeling, Special Agent in Charge,
Albany Division, Federal Bureau Of Investigation,
United States Of America.

Anti-fraud resources: