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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: "Mr. John Brown." (may be fake)
Reply-To: <jibrowncbn@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:08:20 +0800
Subject: OUR REF: CBN/GO/0X012/09.

OUR REF: CBN/GO/0X012/09.
DEAR FRIEND.

Your attention, After a serious thought, I decided to reach you directly and personally because I do not have anything against you, but your so called partners.

I am the director of wire transfer/telex department FOREIGN AFFAIRS some time in the past your partner approached me through a friend of mine who works with one of the ministries here and requested that I assist HIM conclude a money transfer deal with YOU as the beneficiary and we all agreed. According to him, he wanted to use this strategy to transfer a huge amount of us dollars by registering your name as (BENEFICIARY) that has not been paid.

Although we agreed that once I did that, he would give me 20% of the total fund and 30% for YOU again give me your contact information before I release the fund to your account. When he saw that I have done that and your name has been approved among the list of those to be paid,as beneficiary instead of reaching an agreement with me he started avoiding me and resorted to threats. Because of that I immediately deleted your payment (CODE) among the list of those to be paid which made it IMPOSSIBLE for the transfer to commence to your account although I did NOT review the CODE NUMBER to any staff even till now to avoid another betray again.

However he became angry the more when he saw that their plan did not work, they started bribing other officials to get another approval to enable them transfer the money to you but all the effort were to NO success. Is it not funny that a beneficiary is being asked to pay for approval while his fund is here with us? I am 100% responsible for the delay and obstructions because of their breach of contract.

if you doubt what I have just told you now, then go ahead and pay any amount they will ask you to pay , after a short time they will come up with another reason to pay again and it goes on and on WITHOUT END. Take note, No office/Remitance department can release the money.

AGAIN BEAR IN MIND YOUR PAYMENT IS NOT IN OFFSHORE and YOU WILL NEVER RECEIVE YOUR PAYMENT FROM ANY OFFSHORE CENTERS AS FOLLOWS LONDON,SPAIN,HOLLAND,DUBAI BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY MAY HAVE TOLD YOU. Now if you want us to work together, these are my conditions.

(I). YOU MUST KEEP OUR TRANSACTION HIGHLY SECRET BECAUSE I DON,T WANT TO GET INVOLVE WITH ANY OF THEM AGAIN IN LIFE and I will have 50% of the money because it is only two of us and yours 50%.

(ii). You MUST assure me that you will not betray me at last and my own share will be safe until when I arrive in your country for the sharing of the fund.

(iii) As you have seen, it will be useless and mere waste of money if you continue with them and we will conclude the transaction with utmost SECRET and CONFIDENTIAL if you wish to adhere to my directives and instructions.

If these conditions are acceptable to you, contact me as soon as possible to let us finalize all the arrangement and conclude the business immediately without any further delay. I will give you more important details once I hear from you based on if you promise to keep away from them and handle this matter with highly secret because I want to transfer the money without any of them knowing. I WAIT FOR YOUR PHONE CALL IMMEDIATELY ON TEL:+234 7082370026.

Best Regards.

MR. JOHN IBEH BROWN.
DIRECTOR OF FOREIGH OPERATION.

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