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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: "Mr. Larry Ken" <bobsoglo@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mrlarryken777@rediffmail.com
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 07:00:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Dear trusted friend




Dear Friend,
 
I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign  remittance department,I know that this message will be a surprise to you but it is coming to you with good intention which will be of mutual benefit for both of us.  In my department i discovered an abandoned sum of $ 20m US dollars (Twenty million US dollars). In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family on July 25th 2000,Mr. Andreas  Schranner, his wife Maria, their daughter Each and husband Christian and two children perished in the air France Concorde New York bound flight; please click here
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm
 
Since we got information about his death, there is nobody to stand as his next of kin to come over and claim his money because the bank cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines. It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and Subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don't want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill and it will not be augur well for the fund to be Unclaimed.
 
The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after 11 years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasure as unclaimed fund.
 
The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and no one from  can stand as next of kin to a foreigner. 50 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 50 % would be for me. There after I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased. Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application which you will fill and send to the office of the Director Foreign Remittance Department, I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements and information's are on my desk. You should contact me immediately as soon as
you receive this letter
 
Trusting to hear from you immediately. Please delete if you are not intrested
 
Yours faithfully, 
Mr Larry Ken.




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