joewein.net   joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days
  jwSpamSpy

Home
About Us
Spam
419/Nigeria
Fraud
Contact

"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 David M Lee" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <davidlee112@bahamamail.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2012 11:44:22 -0400
Subject: Account Balance Alert from Bank Of America

Dear  Customer
 
We have this day 8th day of August, 2012 received a payment credit instruction from the Chairman Federal Reserve Bank New York Mr. Ben S. Bernanke to credit your account with your full Inheritance fund of US1,000,000.00 Million from the Federal Reserve account with our bank, Bank of America. We have agreement to transfer $1,000,000.00 One Million united state dollars to your bank account the only thing required from you now is to get back to us so that we will send to you our processing form which you fill and return it back to us with your banking information. We have only one condition which is as follows bellow.
 
Feeling our processing form and return it back with our processing fee of US350 as soon as we confirm this from you, our agent in charge will then sign for transfer of your fund. Please my good friend, I don’t know what to tell you about this because is above my power and the World Bank must register your transfer before we commence the transfer. Please forgive me and follow my instruction.
 
However Bank of America have assured you that this is the last stage on this project and the World Bank paste an instruction on your fund that nobody should open or access your account.
 
Please do get back to us so that we will send our processing form to you accurately and this office cannot afford to be held liable for any wrong transfer of funds or liability of funds credited into a ghost account. This is your new code (God bless America 460). Please get back to me now, they are waiting to hear from us.
 
Yours in Service,
 
Mr. David M Lee
 

Anti-fraud resources: