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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "MRS BETTY WRIGHT" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <sw15033@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:44:56 +0100
Subject: Congratulations

(INTERNATIONAL FUNDS TRANSFER / AUDIT UNIT)
SUBJECT: TRANSFER BY INSTALLMENT ACCEPTED BY THE BANK
 
Dear Beneficiary
Having understood your unstable situation with the World-bank, we in United Nations begged the Standard Chartered Bank Of Gambia Branch to accept payment by installment on your behalf, to enable our beneficiaries receive their payment that we may reconcile with all countries of the world. We understood your plight as someone who has suffered a lot to get this fund into your private account but right now we are given the best way out.
Write the Bank and request that you want the money to be transferred to your account by installments, so that once the first payments enters into your account you can then use money from there to facilitate the transfer of the rest, once the first installments enters into your account that will equally give you another opportunity to do a test-transfer and withdrawal from your account to master Federal Reserve Online transfer procedure.
 
Suggestions:
If 50% of $600 is equal to = $300
By calculations: if $600 can handle US$10M $300 can also comfortably transfer the sum of US$5M. Once the US$5M is successfully transfer, you can withdraw money from there to handle the transfer of the rest US$5M.
NOTE: Write the Bank to tell them how much you have in hands so that the Bank calculate to tell how much you may receive as first payments-by installments, Do not be shy to indicate the amount you have in hands (no proper-amount is so small to trigger installments-payment base on our discussion with the Bank) so that the first payment will move to your account for you to confirm the existence of the fund before your proceed for the balance.
Finally, We have given instructions to the Standard Chartered Bank Of Gambia to release your Fund to you, so you are therefore advice to contact the GMD
(Group Managing Director), Standard Chartered Bank Of Gambia with the following information. Person: Mr. Samuel Webster (GMD, Standard Chartered Bank Of Gambia) Office email address: sw15033@gmail.com
Send him your direct phone number and contact address as we sincerely apologize for the plight you have gone through in the past years while trying to receive your money.
Thanks for adhering to this instruction and once again accept our congratulations.
MRS. BETTY WRIGHT.
PERSONAL ASSISTANCE TO MR. BAN KI-MOON
(UN) SECRETARY GENERAL
Copyright (c) 2011
United Nation Organization
 

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