|
|
joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
|
|
"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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "economic and financial crime commission" (This name is often mentioned in money recovery scams (re-scam): the real EFCC does not contact victims to offer to get their money back because that is near impossible. )
- "economic and financial crimes commission" (This name is often mentioned in money recovery scams (re-scam): the real EFCC does not contact victims to offer to get their money back because that is near impossible. )
- "(efcc)" (This name is often mentioned in money recovery scams (re-scam): the real EFCC does not contact victims to offer to get their money back because that is near impossible. )
- "abuja" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "EFCC" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <bhcomms@sohu.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:08:36 +0100
Subject: ARRESTED SCAMMERS
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION
WUSE 2, ABUJA.
NIGERIA.
ATTENTION ,
I am agent Anthony Okoro of the Economic and financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Nigeria. We are responsible for the investigation of any form of Financial Crime and apprehension of its perpetrators in Nigeria. We carried out some arrest few days ago related to scam issues and one of the culprits confessed that he had scammed you of some amount of money.
You must go ahead and contact our Operations department through the e-mail address provided below for more information on how your money will be returned back to you:
Operations Department: inspectorjerry@mail2police.com
Officer in Agent Inspector Jerry Emeka
Go ahead and contact the department above for your refund.
Regards,
Agent Anthony Okoro
For EFCC
|
Anti-fraud resources:
