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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:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: Evan Benson <anthflow@rediffmail.com>
Reply-To: evanbensonjn@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:57:18 +0800
Subject: My Dear Friend
Dear Friend
I am Mr. Evan Benson I'm seeking your consent to present you as the next
of kin to a deceased customer of our
bank who died years back without any established heirs so that the bank
will
not confiscate his deposit of
(US$10.7M) and return it to the Government of Benin.
Also note that the deceased deposit has an open beneficiary and any
foreigner can put claim over the fund
irrespective of your tribe, names and religion provided you have the
secret
information on the security file
jacket of the deceased deposit which I will furnish to You upon demand by
authorities of my bank.
I am only contacting you as a foreigner because these funds cannot be
approved to a local Bank here but can
only be approved to any foreign bank account because the money is in US
Dollar account and the owner of the
account was a foreigner too. My aim is to source a honest and trustworthy
individual to whom I can entrust
these funds and who will act as trustee pending my arrival in your country
since my period of disengagement
from service is near.
More details will be given to you as soon as you reply.
Regards
Mr Evan Benson.
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This e-mail has been sent via JARING webmail at http://www.jaring.my
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Anti-fraud resources:
