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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: "Barrister John Lorenz" <barrjohnlorenztg@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 15:12:21 +0300 (EEST)
Subject: Treat As Urgency


--
John Lorenz Chambers.
23, Victoria Island way,
Ikoyi, Lagos -State
Nigeria.
Our ref. au/ret/45673/49
Your ref.................


Attn, Sir / Madam


Re: Next of kin to my late client Eng. Adams.


I am Barrister John Lorenz, a solicitor at law;
I am the personal attorney to late Eng.Adams,
who used to work with shell - Development
Company in Nigeria.Hereinafter shall be referred
to as my client. On April 25th 2005, my client,
his wife and three children were involved in a
train accident in Japan during their visit to
Japan which all the families were dead. Here is
some news about the train accident:


Click on the web address:


Since then I have made several enquiries to your
embassy to locate any of my client's extended
relatives, but this has also proved
unsuccessful.After several attempts to locate a
member of his family, hence I contacted you. I
am contacting you to assist me repatriating the
money and properties left behind by my client
before they get confiscated or declared
unserviceable to the bank where this huge
deposit were lodged. Particularly, the bank
where the deceased had an account valued at
[12.5million dollars] has issued me a notice to
provide the next of kin or have the account
confiscated within the next fourteen official
working days.



Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the
relative for the past years, now I seek your
consent to present you as the next of kin to my
late client.Since I believe you are capable of
doing this transaction. So that the proceeds of
this account valued at [12.5miilion dollars] can
be paid to you, then you and I can share the
money 60% for me and 30% for you, while 5% will
be used to offset all the expenses incurred in
the course of this transaction including tax and
5% for the poor in your country. I
have all necessary legal documents that can be
used to back up our claims.


All i require is your honest co-operation to
enable us seeing this transaction through. I
guarantee that this will be executed under
legitimate arrangement that will protect you
from any breach of the law.



Please get in touch with me by my email and send
the following information to me.



Your full name


Residential address


Phone and fax numbers to enable us discuss
further about this transaction.


Looking forward to your prompt response.



Best regards to you and your family.



Thank you.


Barrister John Lorenz.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/25/AR2005042500187.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4480031.stm



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