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: "Garry Fisher" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <fisher.secretshop@googlemail.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:08:59 +0100
Subject: *****SPAM***** "We have a mystery shopping assignment in your area and we would like you to participate"


Filtr antyspamowy zidentyfikowal przychodzaca wiadomosc jako potencjalny spam.
Oryginalna wiadomosc zostala umieszczona w zalaczniku (jesli to nie jest spam)
lub folder reklamowy rozsylany w duzym nakladzie. Jesli masz jakies pytania
skontaktuj sie z Twoim administratorem.

Content preview: "We have a mystery shopping assignment in your area and we
would like you to participate" Secret Shopper® is accepting applications
for qualified individuals to become mystery shoppers. It's fun and rewarding,
and you choose when and where you want to shop. You are never obligated to
accept an assignment. There is no charge to become a shopper and you do not
need previous experience. After you sign up, you will have access to training
materials via e-mail, fax or postal mail. [...]

Content analysis details: (11.9 points, 10.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
0.5 RCVD_IN_PBL RBL: Received via a relay in Spamhaus PBL
[41.211.228.151 listed in zen.spamhaus.org]
1.1 RCVD_IN_SORBS_WEB RBL: SORBS: sender is a abuseable web server
[41.211.228.151 listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net]
0.0 MISSING_MID Missing Message-Id: header
1.6 MISSING_HEADERS Missing To: header
0.7 URG_BIZ BODY: Contains urgent matter
0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
1.7 MIME_HTML_ONLY BODY: Message only has text/html MIME parts
0.0 FORGED_OUTLOOK_TAGS Outlook can't send HTML in this format
2.0 ADVANCE_FEE_2 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)
0.0 FORGED_OUTLOOK_HTML Outlook can't send HTML message only
0.1 RDNS_NONE Delivered to trusted network by a host with no rDNS
4.2 FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook

The original message was not completely plain text, and may be unsafe to
open with some email clients; in particular, it may contain a virus,
or confirm that your address can receive spam. If you wish to view
it, it may be safer to save it to a file and open it with an editor.


Anti-fraud resources: