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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: "Muhammed John Allen" <muhammed_allen@centrum.sk>
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:35:01 +0100
Subject: Urgent Reply Needed.

Good Day,

Do accept my sincere apology if my mail does not meet your personal ethics, although I wish to use this medium to get in touch with you first because it's one of the easiest means of communication.

I am Mr.Muhammed Allen, an external auditor of a well known bank here in the United Kingdom.

During the course of our routine auditing ,I discovered a dormant accounts with holding balance of £26,000,000 (Twenty Six Million British Pounds Sterling), which has not been operated for the past six years, after going through some old files in the records I discovered that the owner of the account died without a heir hence the money is floating and if I did not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing and the government of United Kingdom will confiscate the fund for their personal use, which I don’t want such incident to happen to me being that this is a great opportunity and such opportunity comes once in a life time.

>From my investigations and confirmation, the owner of the account was a foreigner by name John Shumejda and he died on the 4th of January 2002 in a plane crash in Birmingham; you can view this CNN link for details on the crash.

Website:( http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/01/04/england.plane/ )

Since then, nobody has done anything as regards the claiming of this money, as he has no family member that has any knowledge about the existence of the account or the fund, also information gotten from the National Immigration also states that he was single on entry into United Kingdom.

After detailed investigations on the deceased and his account, I found out there is no mention of any heirs or family member on the account documents in the Bank records, therefore the money was lodged secretly into the account.

I have made necessary plans to transfer the fund out with your sincerely support. I have also moved the funds into what the bank call Escrow Holding Account with no beneficiary. Meanwhile as you know I cannot be directly connected to this money for obvious reasons .I will compute your particulars as the beneficiary of the fund deposited in the branch.

I am revealing this to you with belief that you will never let me down in this business, so please reply urgently . I need your strong assurance that you will never let me down in this business proposition either now or in the future.

This transaction is totally risk and troubles free as the fund is legitimate and does not originate from drug, money laundry, terrorism or any other illegal act.

Finally, I will give you 35% for your coporation,5% will be for expenses both parties might have incurred during the process of transferring.

You should Send your private telephone and fax number including the full details of an account where you like the money to be transfer so that my lawyer will write an application to the bank on your behalf for the release of the fund immediately to your bank account . Even an empty account can serve as long as it can recieve money it's still OK. On receipt of your response I will furnish you with detailed clarification as it relates to this mutual benefit transaction.

I look forward to hear from you as soon as possible .

Please reply here using my private email for security reasons {muhammed_allen1@hotmail.com }

Best Regards,
Mr. Muhammed Allen

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