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. Ted Moore" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrtedmooree@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:57:46 +0700
Subject: URGENT RESPONSE REQUIRED

United Nations Association of the United States of America
Address:801 Second Avenue
New York, NY
Tel:206-309-5245                 
 
Our Ref: UN/NY/012211
 
 
                                                                                             
                                                                                                      RE: COMPENSATION OF US$1,000.000.00
 
 
 
Attention Beneficiary,
 
 
How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family? You may not understand why this mail came to you. We have been having a meeting for the past 3 months which ended yesterday with the secretary to the UNITED NATION. This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$1,000.000.00 each and you have to indicate how much you lost in the hand of scammers.
 
This includes every foreign contractors, Inheritance,Dating,Lottery payment that have not received their Lottery/Inheritance payment, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international Lottery payment that failed due to Government problems etc. We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed.
 
You are advice to get back to us with the following,
 
Your full Name........Direct telephone number......... Your correct home address.............. immediately for your compensation payment.
 
Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon as possible for your compensation funds, don’t neglect this I advice you.
 
United Nations, Making the world a better place.
 
 
Regards,
Mr. Ted Moore
United Nations Association.
 

Anti-fraud resources: