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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: "Donald Lucas" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <rev@secretarias.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2011 14:55:00 -0700
Subject: Hello/Urgent!!!

Guaranty Trust Bank,
(UK) Limited,
60-62 Margaret Street,
London W1W 8TF.

Greetings,

I am Mr. Donald Lucas and i work with Guaranty Trust Bank (UK) Limited.There Is an account opened in my bank in 1997 and since nobody has operated on this account again, after going through some old file in the
records I discovered that if I do not remit this money out urgently it would be forfeited for nothing. The owner of this account is Mr. Thompson Ernest,
a foreigner and a miner at Mount Resources Ltd. a geologist by profession.who died in a Plane crash on Monday 2nd September 1998 GMT 14:22 UK while they were flying from New York to Geneva.,and no other person knows about this account or anything
concerning it. The account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that his company does not know anything about his account and the amount involved is Twenty Million United States Dollars(US$20,000,000.00).


http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9809/swissair.victims.list/index.html

I am only contacting you as a foreigner because the bank is going to welcome you as a foreigner that has correct information about the account, which I
will give to you before we proceed. I need your full co-operation to make this work fine. If you are capable to handle such an amount in strict confidence
and trust we will achieve this money immediately, I will also use my position to influence approvals and immediate onward transfer of this money to your
account for sharing and further investments.

Contact me via my Alternative email address: donaldlucas34@yahoo.com

I look forward to your earliest reply.

Best Regards,

Donald Lucas


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