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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 phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "economic and financial crime commission" (This name is often mentioned in money recovery scams (re-scam): the real EFCC does not contact victims to offer to get their money back because that is near impossible. )
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
- This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- greg_adams000@yahoo.co.jp (Yahoo, Japan; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: "United Nation" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <greg_adams000@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:26:19 +0700
Subject: Compliment of The Season
Attention: Beneficiary,
This is to notify you that a meeting which was being held since the past 3months with the present United States Government,the UN and the present African government to restore its dignity in the eyes of the world has ended 3days ago.
With the assistance of the world bank to make the world a better place with the sole aim of abolishing poverty.The UN in conjunction with the African Government/World bank has agreed to compensate the victims with the sum of USD250,000.00 (Two Hundred & Fifty Thousand US Dollars).This email is to all the people that has been scammed in any part of the world especially by corrupt government officials in Africa .This includes every foreign contractor that may have not received their contract sum,and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to global recession.
Your name and email was in the list submitted by our Monitoring Team of Economic and Financial Crime Commission observers and this is why we are contacting you.
We have assigned Greg Adams ,a United Nation official in London to monitor these payments to issue out these payments in International Bank Drafts.
Therefore,you should send her your full Names and telephone number for easier correspondences and guidelines.
Person to Contact: Mr Greg Adams.
Email: greg_adams000@yahoo.co.jp
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Anti-fraud resources:
