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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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.
Click here to report a problem with this page.
Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "very confidential" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Morris Jacob <joynwatu@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:36:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Urgent Attention;
Hello Friend,Â
It is my pleasure to communicate this idea to you through this medium believing that you will take your time to properly study the facts contained in the message.   Â
Honestly I have privileged information of an account in the dormant section of the bank where I work, that has credit balance of Six million, two hundred United States dollars but has not been operated on since 2003. This said account is an individual account and from all indications the account owner appears to be no more or has problem some where. In view of this prevailing situation I have nurtured a deal, which if well executed will change our economic status in no distant time. In the event where we agree to work together to pull-out some money from said account I will release the dormant section of the bank’s database information to you so that you can access and view said account balance/statement online before we can begin any arrangement. The essence of this is to ensure that you divorce my proposal from all these Internet frauds and scams that are all over the place. I choose to make contact through the Internet because there is no other easy
means through which I could have been exposed to choice of selection of a sincere person needed for this very confidential proposal. As this request will mean transfer of money from personal account to corporate account of the same customer we will not encounter any difficulty in honouring the request. Based on the corporate account you can now comfortably issue us transfer advice to wire the money to any overseas bank account where we shall pick up the money for sharing (50/50) Please get back to me.   Â
Best regards,Â
Morris Jacob.
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Anti-fraud resources:
