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: Microsoft promo Online Draw <officee-----desk2@att.net>
Reply-To: mincorporated34@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:56:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Your E-Mail Has Won a Development Fund Redeem it



Dear Winner,


This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of ( US$380,000 ) for the 2011 International E-mail Draw which is Organized by Microsoft Incorporated Development Company.



Microsoft Incorporated Development Company collects all the email addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo, Aol, Walla, rediffmail, Gmail, Russian Mail and Hotmail and few from other e-mail providers. Six people are selected yearly to benefit from this promotion and you are one of the Selected Winners.



Yahoo Incorporated in conjunction with Microsoft Incorporated wish to congratulate you over your email addresss success in this 2011 development fund.

Your email address emerged as one of the forty five final recipients of a cash grant/donation of US$380,000 to salvage your finances and to develop your community in this new year. This cash grant is a gift and you will never be required to pay it back.

This financial bailout plan is faunded by G8, United Nations Agencies, Economic Development Organizations and Regional Unions which include the African Union (AU), Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), European Union (EU), Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), North American Union (NAU) etc in an effort to reduce the impact of food and financial crisis around the world. The leaders of these organizatioans and Unions met in the G8 2011 Development Summit in New York, United States of America and made donations for this programme. Yahoo and Microsoft were engaged to carry out the task of conducting the email balloting and to subsequently pay winners.

This is the first time this program is taking place. Note that all participants email addresses were selected randomly from all countries of the world through a random asampling and your email address is attached to file reference number (YM-21-1-1) that emerged as one of the lucky numbers that won the sum of Three hundred and eighty thousand U.S. Dollars (US$380,000, 00)

To file for your claim,
please contact our coordinator, Mr. Robin Alexander, on this email:

Email: onlinewinner@thailot.org

Provide him with the below details to enable him verify and issue you the bank draft:

Full Names:
Residential Official Address: (Not P. O. Box)
City:
State:
Postal Code:
Country:
Winning Email Address:
Telephone Number:
Occupation:
Age:
Sex:
On behalf of myself and all staff of Yahoo Incorporated and Microsoft incorporated, I say congratulations once again!

Your sincerely,
Barrister.Steven Walter
(President: Microsoft award Board )

Anti-fraud resources: