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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: "MRS THELMA DAVIS" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <thelmad01@googlemail.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:26:14 -0800
Subject: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND ACT AS INSTRUCTED YOU.

Oceanic Bank of Nigeria plc
Wasu Face II,
Abuja - Nigeria
Office of the Auditor General
>From The Desk Of:
Ms. Thelma A. Davis. {American}

Attention: Beneficiary

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND ACT AS INSTRUCTED YOU.

I am Ms. Thelma A. Davis, an American Lady working as an auditor in Oceanic Bank of Nigeria plc, I am Instructed to officially inform you that we have verified your contract/Lotto /inheritance file and found out that why you have nota received your payment is because you have not fulfilled the obligations given to you in respect of your contract/Lotto/inheritance payment.

Secondly, we have been informed that you are still dealing with none officials in the bank all in your attempt to secure the release of the fund to you. We wish to advise you that such an illegal act like this has to stop if you wish to receive your payment since we have decided to bring a solution to your problem.

Right now we have arranged your payment through our SWIFT CARD PAYMENT CENTRE from European Union, which is the latest instruction from the new elected president Mr. President, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yara'dua (GCFR) Federal Republic of Nigeria.
This card center will send you an ATM card, which you will use towithdraw your money in any ATM machine in any part of the world, but the maximum is fifteen Thousand United States Dollars ($15,000.00) per day. So if you like to receive your fund in this way, please let us know and send the following information as listed below to:

1. Full name
2. Phone and fax number
3. Address were you want them to send the ATM card to (P.O box not
acceptable)
4. Your age and current occupation

We will forward your information to the director of ATM CARD payment officer Rev. Fr Peter Edwin upon our receipt of the above information. Or you can call him. This is his direct phone number: +2347033134136.

Note that the ATM card payment center was mandated to issue out $8,300,000.00 as part payment for this fiscal year 2009 to you so bear with us. Also for your information, you have to stop any further communication with any other person(s) or office(s) to avoid any hitches in receiving your payment.

Note that because of impostors, we hereby issued you our code of conduct, which is (ATM-1616) so you have to indicate this code when contacting the card center by using it as your subject.

We anticipate your total compliance to this message immediately.

Yours sincerely,
Ms. Thelma A. Davis. {American}
Auditor General [OBN]

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