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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: Mr Ahmed Issa <ahmedissa25@gmail.com>
Reply-To: ahmedissa24@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:57:26 +0800 (SGT)
Subject: Urgent And Confidential Attention Needed




BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,BANK OF AFRICA(B.O.A)Ouagadougou Burkina-Faso( West Africa )   
                                URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL    My Name is Mr.Ahmed Issa, I am a banker by profession, hail from Ouagadougou,Burkina Faso,West Africa. My purpose of contacting you is to transfer an abandoned property worth $27,200,000.00 USD into your account if you are interested. This fund was deposited by Late(MR. PAUL LOUIS) from Paris,France who died along with his entire family in 6th December  2003 in Air crash. Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his family member or the next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines,but unfortunately we learn that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.   I want to present you to the Bank as the Next of Kin/beneficiary of this fund as It is
therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody has come for it and we don’t want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer,please treat this business with utmost confidentiality and you should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.   Please make sure you keep this transaction as a top secret and make it confidential till we receive the fund into the account that you will provide to the bank,for our interest i advice you not to disclose it to any body because the secrecy of this transaction is as well as the success of it. I agree that 40% of this money will be
for you as foreign partner in respect to the provision of a foreign account and while 60% would be for me. Further details of the transaction shall be forwarded to you as soon as I receive your response indicating your interest. I am waiting to hear from you urgently.   Yours faithfully. MR.Ahmed Issa

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