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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: "SAM Koto" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <dobent01@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 08:01:56 -0700
Subject: PLEASE GET BACK TO ME

Greetings,
 
Please pardon me for making this initial contact through email.
 
I am Dr. Sam Koto, a Ghanaian, Male 47years old with five kids and it may interest you to know that I am a man of Peace. I have packaged a financial transaction that would profit both of us if we are able to come together and work as a term in one accord.
 
There’s these amount of funds that was secretly moved to a bank with a help of a colleague working in the bank. We need a foreign investor hence we contacted you, we want you to assist us repatriates the funds to your bank account as a beneficiary.  We need your permission to enable us enlists your name because the funds was deposited unanimously in the bank and it’s against the rules of our government to have anyone working under this administration to have a foreign/current account.
 
We would have gone straight to have these funds transferred to our local bank account, but that would draw a straight line to our involvements as blacks and as Ghanaians. The funds in question is the sum $41,700,000.00 (forty-one million and seven hundred thousand United States dollars) only. Let me know if you can handle this transaction so that we can brief you how we can work together towards this common objective of financial stability.
 
We guarantee you that this transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect us, however, you will be entitled to have 40% of the funds after the transfer and the remaining 60% will be for me and my colleague. Please considered this message as a request and on no condition you should involved any third or fort parties to know about this and if you are one of those people that goes out asking questions, let us put a stop here because this transaction must be top secret and confidential until a conclusion.
 
It would be a great benefit and joy to transact this business with you since you are the only person we have contacted.
 
Please get back to me if you are interested.
 
Thank you once more,
 
Dr. Sam Koto.

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