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: "MR. MICHAEL HURD" <mchaelhurd@gmail.com>
Reply-To: micheallhurd@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:56:25 -0700
Subject: DEAR FRIEND

Schroder & Co. Bank AG.
Postfach 1820
8021 Zurich,
Switzerland
SWIFT: BJHSCHZZ

Good Day,

Schroder & Co. Bank AG. is the Swiss offshore bank of the Schroder Plc UK, established in 1804 and now one of the biggest publicly quoted companies in UK. The Swiss office of Schroder Plc UK, Known as Schroder & Co. Bank AG, was established in 1967 and is now one of the leading Global Assets Management banks in Europe. I am an investment consultant working with Schroder & Co. Bank AG. Zurich, Switzerland.

I will be happy to do a nice deal with you from within this bank, if you have a corporate, or personal Bank account and if you are capable of keeping matters absolutely confidential. I need strong assurances that you can and that you will not let me down, sink, or double-cross me, if I transfer some good money into your bank account anywhere on earth.

During one of our periodic auditing in Schroder & Co. Bank AG , I discovered some dormant accounts within the bank with various amounts of Dormant Assets. A Dormant Asset is defined as any asset deposited with a bank (i.e. an account, a security, or Financial instrument, or cash, etc) for which there has been no contact with the customer, or any activity in such account for the last ten years, or more. Sometimes a person will open a bank account, deposit money, and then disappear into the thin air for whatever reasons. Banks are not always able to find out what has become of such silent customers. Usually such customers reside abroad and due to bank secrecy and non-disclosure agreements/policies, the bank cannot publish notices in the international press/media, to locate such depositors.

There were incidences in the past, where customers pass away by reason of death and their heirs could neither prove their heir-ship, nor come forward to claim the estates left behind by such deceased customers. This was a frequent occurrence during the first and second world war periods, and for which reason, survivors of the war victims lost all the monies/assets their benefactors had in Swiss banks to this day. Now the Swiss banking industry has set up a simple, customer-friendly, rapid resolution procedure, operating to the customers' advantage, as a way of dealing with such situations. And that is what we are going to capitalize on, in this proposed transaction.

At this point, I am constrained not to give you any more details about this transaction until your response and expression of interest are received by me, vide return e-mail. Therefore, if you know that you are capable of handling large, or small amounts of money on trust, can keep secret and ready to take 45% of any amount I transfer to your account from the said dormant assets accounts as your commission and release the 55% remainder to me, then get back to me immediately. The amount in question here is $13,450,000 (Thirteen point four-five Million Dollars).

I want to assure you that this business is risk-free and it doesn't matter whether your preferred/intended receiving bank a/c has one dollar only in it, or is empty, provided that the account is active and capable of receive incoming funds.

I am looking forward to discussing this opportunity further with you in detail, after you must have replied this mail to micheallhurd@gmail.com expressing your firm interest in the offer. Thank you for your time and attention.

Regards,

Mr. Michael Hurd.

Anti-fraud resources: