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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "economic and financial crime commission" (This name is often mentioned in money recovery scams (re-scam): the real EFCC does not contact victims to offer to get their money back because that is near impossible. )
- "(efcc)" (This name is often mentioned in money recovery scams (re-scam): the real EFCC does not contact victims to offer to get their money back because that is near impossible. )
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Mr.Abdul Rasaq." (may be fake)
Reply-To: <arasaq2002@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:01:45 -0400
Subject: Dear Esteem Beneficiary
>From of the Desk of the chairman
Economic and financial Crime Commission (EFCC) Nigeria
Head office
Attn:Beneficiary.
This is to officially inform you that we have been able to arrest all the impostors who has been taking your money for nothing. According to one of them, they have been scamming you for the past two to three
years now.
Note that we have all of them in our custody now and we have received instruction from Dr. Jonathan Ebele Goodluck, the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to
release your $5.5M to you with immediate effect.
Finally you are hereby advise to get back to us with your personal
information together with your banking details immediately you receive
this e-mail.
Best Regard,
Mr.Abdul Rasaq.
Media Sec. Economic and financial Crime commission( Efcc)
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Anti-fraud resources:
