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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: "Alfarsi Investment Group" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <alfarinvest@yahoo.cn>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2012 12:35:01 -0700
Subject: Urgent Investment Opportunity
Dear Sir,
I am contacting you based on business relationship. We are a UAE based investment company, our business is all about investing and we have done a lot across the globe and we are still expanding every hour and minute.
So we need to get your business plan to study what kind of business you do because we have the capacity to fund business activities to the tune of 500 Million to one Billion United States Dollars.
We would be happy to receive an NDA if you have any viable project we can buy into and partner together by making financial investment, after which we can negotiate the funding modalities and duration of investment and amount to invest.
Please do send us a business plan and we study to see possible investments.
Kindly get back to me if we can work together.
Sheikh Hushur
Alfarsi Investment Group
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Anti-fraud resources:
