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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: "AFRICAN UNION FUND FUND RECOVERY" <afriunrecovery1@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:30:21 -0000 (GMT)
Subject: YOUR FUND..PLEASE RESPOND:


AFRICAN UNION RECOVERY,
DEPARTMENT OF INT'L AFFAIRS
1 Horse Guards Road,London,SW1A 2HQ.

Respected Beneficiary,

I am the Director of International Affairs in the African Union
Recovery office in London, Britain.Recently, the British government
has received series of complaints regarding the Existence of huge sums
of money that are trapped and left unclaimed in Most African Banks and
Financial organizations, especially in Nigeria.The African Union
External Affairs department (My Office) was mandated by the British
government to go to Africa to investigate and recover all Funds
belonging to United States, European, Asian and Australian
Nationals that are trapped in African Banks and finance houses.

On our investigation in Nigeria, we discovered a file NO;
234/98GT/UB/OT22/01 with the total sum of Five Million US Dollars
(USD5, 000,000.00) with your name as the Beneficiary. It was further
Discovered that some unknown officials of the Bank have fraudulently
Diverted some part of your total sum to unknown accounts in the past
leaving only USD5Million in the account.

My office has recovered this amount (USD5M) and we want you to receive
it Without any waste of time while we further continue our
investigation to get those fraudulent officials who were involved in
diverting some part of the funds.Because of the problems associated
with Bank wire transfers, we have Decided that all the recovered funds
will be delivered to the Beneficiaries in cash to avoid the issues of
fund transfer requirements. Under this arrange, we have secretly
packed and sealed all the recovered funds in Galvanized Trunk boxes
and we shall engage the services of a Diplomatic Courier Firm that
will handle the delivery of the trunks to your area of destination.

The Courier Firm uses Diplomats to deliver vital consignments for
safety purposes. Though, for security reasons, we will want neither
the courier company nor the Diplomat to know the content of the trunk
boxes.With this arrangement, you will receive your fund under a
hitch-free claim process as you will not be subjected to Bank
requirements.We will request you to reconfirm your FULL NAMES, ADDRESS
AND PHONE NUMBERS to us and then we shall give you further details on
the delivery.

Thanks,

Mr.Robert Scott.
Email:afriurecovery@yahoo.com.ph
(Director of Int'l Affairs)



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