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: "Mary Van Dotcha" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <holmeclaim@aol.nl>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:34:51 +0100
Subject: Internet User*

WARD WINNING NOTICE
Ref No.67324/113
Batch No.312/00643374
Ticket/Series No.NL6775489
Amount Won: $2,500,000.00 USD

Attn: Internet User,

This is to formally inform and congratulate you on the result of the
online cyber lotto which was conducted from an exclusive list of 1,000.000
email addresses of individual and corporate bodies selected by an advanced
automated random computer ballot system from the internet.
Your e-mail address emerged as a winner in the category "A" with the
following information enclosed.

You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $2,500,000.00. (Two Million
Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).
To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to
contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category "A" winners
with the information below:

*************************************
Soresen Holmes
Phone: 00 31 64 519 7491
Fax: 00 31 84 732 3701
EMAIL: holmeclaim@aol.nl
*************************************

You are advice to provide him with the following information and a copy of
your international passport or driver's license via email attachment or by
fax for vetting process which is a standard practice just to ensure that we
are dealing with the right individual.

First name:
Last Name:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:
Winning Email:

NOTE: Ensure to quote your Reference Numbers in all your communication with
your claims agent. All winnings must be claimed not later than seven working
days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake.
Congratulations! Thank you for being a user of the World Wide Web.

Yours Faithfully,

Mary Van Dotcha
http://www.lotto.nl
Lottery Coordinator.

Copyright © 2009 The Netherlands National Lottery Inc.

Anti-fraud resources: