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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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- The following fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "yahoo/msn lottery inc" (no such lottery exists)
- "yahoo/msn lottery" (no such lottery exists)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
- They don't notify winners by email.
- You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
- They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
- They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
- They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
- They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
- They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
Fraud email example:
From: "Mrs.Gloria Bent" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mr.willamlarry1@live.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:12:30 -0800
Subject: Thank you and Accept my hearty congratulations once again!
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of Five hundred thousand, Great Britain Pound Sterlings(£500,000.00) for the month of FEBRUARY 2010 Lottery promotion which is organized by YAHOO/MSN LOTTERY INC & WINDOWS LIVE.
You are to contact the events manager on or before your date of Claim,Winners Shall be paid in accordance with his/her Settlement Centre.
These are your identification numbers:
Batch number.....................YM 09102XQP
Reff number.......................YM35447XNS
Winning number...................YM09777
How ever you will have to fill and submit this form to the events manager for verification & direction on how you can
claim your winning fund.
1. Full name..............
2. Contact Address........
3. Age....................
4. Telephone Number.......
5. Marital Status.........
6. Sex....................
7. Next Of Kin............
8. Zip Code...............
9. Occupation.
10. Company................
11.State:.................
12.Country................
13.Nationality............
14. Your Reference and Batch number at the
top of this mail:
Thank you and Accept my hearty congratulations once again!
Yours faithfully,
Mrs.Gloria Bent
(Lottery Coordinator).
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Anti-fraud resources:
