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: "FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <telex_departmentng@live.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:10:20 -0800
Subject: Re:Dear beneficiary,

FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE
5th Floor, Annex 3, New Federal Secretariat Complex,
Shehu Shagari Way, Central Area
Lagos  Nigeria.
 
Dear beneficiary,
 
I work with TELEX FINANCE DEPARTMENT I am member of the new appointed committee for the FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE. I was directed to contact you by the Minister to urgently confirm from you if actually you know one Mr. Peter Woo who claim to be your business associate/partner in Nigeria. They said Mr. Peter Woo is claiming to us that you are dead and he will like to change all the Informations that gave to us as our bonafide beneficiary.
 
This development is coming now that the Ministry wants to offset all outstanding payments to all our legal origin beneficiaries around the world in which your payment file was affected. As you may know, the total amount in your favor is a total sum of $4.5 Million U.S Dollars. We need to confirm from you if its really true that you are dead and if we did not hear from you, it automatically means that you are actually dead and the information passed to us by Mr. Peter Woo is correct, before we will be able to send signal for approval of the part-payment in accordance with section 290 Act 166 OF 2009.
 
You are to contact me through my email address telex_departmentng@live.com   as soon as you receive this message, so as to know the true position of things with you so that we would not make any mistake in remitting your out-standing payment to a wrong person/account.
 
Your swift response will help to this ministry a lot. You are advice to resend your full information full name…., direct telephone number…., city and country…, to this effect in furtherance to these verifications.
 
Best Regards.
MThe Federal Minister Finance (FMF).

Anti-fraud resources: