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: "Mr. Mike Abi" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mikeabiprvt@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:42:23 +0200
Subject: Reply

From Mr.Mike Abi.
Email:mikeabiprvt@yahoo.co.jp


Dear Sir,

TRANSFER OF $25MILLION INTO YOUR COMPANY OR PERSONAL ACCOUNT.

I am Mike Abi the chief finance officer at the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC). I got your information through an attachee at the Nigerian chamber of commerce, industry, mines. And Agriculture, In my search for a reliable and reputable institution/person who can handle a very strictly, confidential transaction of the transfer of $25million to a reliable account.

This $25million is in the suspense account of my department for some time now which represents the surplus of an over valued contract executed for the corporation some years back.

I am seeking if you will permit the surplus to be remitted into your personal/company account so that the money remitted will be shared among the parties concerned.

However, I want to receive your assurance that you will not sit on the money when it goes into your account. Most importantly, this transaction must be kept confidential in order to protect the confidence reposed in the officials involved in this transaction.

We have agreed in principle that 60% of the money goes to the officials where the money originated while 30% to the owner of the account and 10% to offset any expense we may encounter in the course of this transaction. I wish to inform you that this transaction requires urgent reply to enable us conclude the transaction soonest.

Please contact me through the above addresses for further details.

Your urgent response will be highly appreciated.

Best regards

Mr. Mike Abi

Anti-fraud resources: