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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:

Fraud email example:

From: "David Mensah" <d.leedesign@btinternet.com>
Reply-To: <david_mensah104@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:28:17 -0400
Subject: Kindle Get Back to me

Dear Friend,
Esteemed compliments!!

I anticipate that you read this mail quickly and let me know your
opinion or willingness on this Classified Information that I will
release to you. Firstly, I am a happily married man with 3 kids and
therefore I would not want to jeopardize this opportunity to change my
financial status that will give my family a secured future.

My name is David Mensah , I am the Branch manager of the
International Commercial Bank, Kaneshie branch Ghana. I got your
information during my search through the Internet. I am 49 years of age
and married with 3 lovely kids. It may interest you to hear that I am a
man of PEACE and don't want problem, but I don't know how you will feel
about this, but I am telling you that this is real and you are not
going to regret after doing this transaction with me. I only hope we
can assist each other. But if you don't want this business offer kindly
forget it as I will not contact you again.

I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit both of us,
as the Branch manager of the International Commercial Bank; It is my
duty to send in a financial report to my head office in the capital
city Accra-Ghana at the end of each year. On the course of the last two
years 2009 end of year report, I discovered that my branch in which I am
the Manager made Seven Million Five Hundred and Seventy Thousand Dollar
[$7,570,000.00] which my head office are not aware of and will never be
aware of, Nor must they know that I am involved in this transaction.

I have since place this fund on what we call SUSPENSE ACCOUNT without
any beneficiary. As an office of the bank I can not be directly
connected to this money, so this informed my contacting you for us to
work so that you can assist receive this money into your bank account
for us to SHARE. While you will have 35% of the total fund. Note there
are practically no risk involved, it will be bank to bank transfer, all
I need from you is to stand claim as the original depositor of this
fund who made the deposit with our branch so that my Head office can
order the transfer to your designated bank account. If you accept this
offer to work with me, I will appreciate it very much. As soon as I
receive your kind response, I will give you details on how we can
achieve it successfully.


Best Regards
Mr. David Mensah

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