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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: "Mr. Marais" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <hendrick_marais2@excite.co.jp>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:44:24 -0200
Subject: Urgently reply from Malaysia

From. Mr. Marais:
Tel: +60193265153

Dear friend,
How are you today?, I'm Hendrick Marais, branch manager of one of the international Banks here in Malaysia, Am 52yrs old married with children. I wish to solicit your partnership to achieve the once in a life time opportunity at hand presently.

As branch manager of our bank, it is my duty to send auditing report to our bank head office in the capital city (Kuala Lumpur) at the end of each business year. On the course of last year (2010) business report. I discovered that my branch made Six million USD (US$6,000,000.00) which our bank head office does not aware of, further my private investigation I discovered that this fund was part of unclaimed deposited funds in our bank by a late French foreign investor before his sudden death with wife and two children on Boeing 737 Egyptian Airliner that crashed into the Red Sea on 3rd day of January 2004. You can read more about the crash by visiting the below website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3365769.stm

But as an officer in our bank I cannot directly have access to this fund. My aim of contacting you is to seek your partnership to team up with me and get 40% of the total fund as commission for your partnership after the fund is release to your account. Lastly, the transfer will be bank to bank transfer without you traveling to anywhere, all I need of you is to stand claim as the title holder of the fund to enable our bank head office release the fund to your bank account.

Waiting for your urgent response to enable me furnish further details.

Regards,
Mr. Marais.
Tel: +60193265153
Email: hendrick_marais2@excite.co.jp

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