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: "Insp. Susan Delek" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <inspsusan@sify.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:39:59 +0100
Subject: RELEASE OF FUND HELD BY THE FBI

Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, Nw Washington, D.C. 20535-0001
DATE: 10-27-2009

This is an official advice from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It has come to our notice that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released US$10,500,000.00 into Bank of America in your name as the beneficiary.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) knowing full well that they have not met with the requirements to effect your payment into your bank account via wire transfer, they went and used what we know as a secret diplomatic transit payment S.D.T.P to transport your funds into United States of America instead of wire transfer.

We wish to inform you that we have discovered the funds deposited in your name with Bank of America in Atlanta, Georgia. During our course of investigation of incoming funds into United States we discovered this huge deposit made in your favor as mentioned above. The funds are undergoing proper verifications to proof the legitimacy of this transaction and you are to provide all legal documents relating to this huge payment before you can be granted access to the funds.
The Bank of America will not be permitted to execute final crediting into your bank account until you prove the origin of these funds by providing the required documents.

Records which we have had with this method of payment in the past have always been related to terrorist activities and drugs. We would not want you to get into troubles as soon as the funds hit your account. So it is our duty as a word wide commission to correct this problem before final crediting into your bank account. The funds are presently on hold and undergoing scrutiny until you provide the said required documents.

You are required to urgently contact Bank of America (BOA) and liaise with the person in charge of your case for further advice.

Mr. George Hundila
Customer Relation officer
Telephone: 1-404-537-2336
Email: ghundila@boamail2server.com

We have decided to contact you directly to obtain the proper verifications and proof from you to ascertain that the funds are clean because of the huge amount involve.

Insp. Susan Delek
Inspector,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington D.C.

Anti-fraud resources: