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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: "ECOWAS UNIT" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <interswitchdep@yahoo.es>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:09:23 -0700
Subject: RE: SCAM VICTIMS COMPENSATIONS

                                         ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF WEST AFRICAN STATES ((ECOWAS)
                                                       MONITORING & INVESTIGATION UNIT
                                                  14 HANOVER STREET, HANOVER SQUARE,
                                                                  LOME-REPUBLIC
 
 
OurRef:CBN0XX2/180                                                                      
>From The Desk Of
Lamido Sanusi the New Governor,
Central Bank (CBN )
Email: interswitchdep@yahoo.es
 
RE: SCAM VICTIMS COMPENSATIONS
 
This is to bring to your notice that I am delegated from ECOWAS To Central Bank to pay 150 scam victims USD100,000 (One Hundred Thounsand United Dollars) each. You are listed and approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims to be paid this amount, get back to as soon as possible for the immediate payments of your USD100,000 compensations funds.
 
On this faithful recommendations, know that during the last ECOWAS. meetings held at Abuja, it was alarmed so much by the world in the meetings on the lose of funds by various individuals to the Nigerian scams artists operating in syndicates all over the world today. In other to compensate victims, the ECOWAS body in conjunction with the Nigerian Government is now paying 150 victims of this operators USD100,000 each in accordance with the ECOWAS recommendations. Due to the corrupt and inefficient Banking Systems in Nigeria, the payments are to be supervised by the ECOWAS officials and the Central Bank Nigeria .
 
According to the number of applicants at hand, 114 beneficiaries has been paid, half of the victims are from the United States, we still have more 36 left to be paid the compensations of USD100,000 each. Your particulars was mentioned by one of the syndicates who was arrested as one of their victims of the operations, you are hereby warned not to communicate or duplicate this message to them for any reason what so ever as the interpol is already on trace of these criminals.
 
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have combined efforts with the ECOWAS Anti-crime commission to alleviate and redeem the image and past wounds of foreigners and firms who were defrauded, scammed and abandoned by these syndicates to slight down our dignities to international communities. Many banks have been in bankrupcy today, Universal firms, Companies and individuals due to the activity of these hoodlums. However, investigation have shown that these people have dropped over 500,000 victims after collecting their money falsefuly, many committed suicide and others living by the grace of God.
 
With the sanity presently at hand, we have over 500 convicts at hand, 300 in kirikri prisons while many are still awaiting trail while we still fetch for others who feel they are wise and hope that you will be our friend by giving us more information as per clue in apprehending them.You can receive your compensations payments via any of these options you choose, DRAFT/CHEQUE PAYMENTS, MASTER DEBIT CARD or  WIRE TRANSFERS. I shall feed you with further modalities as soon as I hear from you.
 
Yours faithfully.
 
Lamido Sanusi.
Executive Governor,
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)

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