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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Hon Slong" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <honslong@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:09:56 -0700
Subject: Greeting to you .
I am Mr. Hon Slong, a friend as well as business partner to a gentleman who hailed from your country and who was resident here in Cambodia for the past twenty years.
Early last year my client was killed in a boat accident while vacationing in Seam Reap Province. Since then I have made several inquiries to locate any of my friend's extended relatives but this has proved unsuccessful.
The reason why I am contacting you is that we have a business payment that is outstanding with a commercial bank here in Cambodia which the bank has refused to release because my friend did not stipulate a next of kin which has prevented them from paying the money to me. I want to utilize your name as the next of kin so that they can transfer this money out.
I await your immediate response so that I will give you a more comprehensive detail as regards to this.
Mr. Hon Slong
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Anti-fraud resources:
