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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:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "huge amount of money" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- ",500,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "urgent assistance" (scammers rush victims so they don't have time to think properly)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Mr.Ahmed Ouadrago" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ahmedouadrago@y7mail.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 02:45:08 -0700
Subject: Here is the message20
From Ahmed Ouadrago.
Accra-Ghana
Dear Friend,
Good day to you. I am Mr. Ahmed Ouadrago a personal confidential lawyer to Abdullah Senussi who was the intelligence chief of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum valued ($60,500,000,00) Million to your Bank Account within 14 banking days from a bank in Accra-Ghana. This money belongs to my boss Abdullah Senussi and was deposited in the bank on the name of his son. The urgent need for the transfer of this fund is to avoid confiscation by the current Libyan government as they quest the seizure of every related assets belonging to Late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his aides. I am contacting you in a good faith so that the bank will release the money to you for safe keeping/investments till the release of my master who is now in custody.
So if you are capable of receiving this huge amount of money, let me have a positive response from you via return mail for more personal discussions on how we are going to go about it.
Best Regards,
Mr. Ahmed Ouadrago
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Anti-fraud resources:
