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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:

Fraud email example:

From: Justice Cohen <mikelbla1988@gmail.com>
Reply-To: call4cohen@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:38:10 +0100
Subject: Dear Respectful,


Dear Respectful,

I hopefully believe that this mail will meet you in good health. My name is
Mr. Justice Cohen the chief of account and audit department, United Bank
for Africa.

My reason of contacting you is for my urgent need for a foreigner from your
location, who can sincerely and confidentially assist me to execute a big
opportunity that recently occurred in my bank.

A customer of ours from your country, who lived and worked here for many
years died in a plane crash with the wife and son. This man had with us, a
domiciliary fix deposit account which the term has expired without any
person coming for the claim of the money in the account.

As the procedure of the bank, if an account owner is died and the account
becomes inactive or dormant due to no one servicing it and no one comes
forward to claim the money in the account as a relative or next of kin, the
fund or money in the account will be declared to the state government as an
abandoned fund and the account will be confiscated. When this happens, a
greater percentage of the total fund in the account goes to the state
treasury while the bank takes the less percentage.

The amount in this account is USD5.6million. Base on my experience as a
banker, if accept to cooperate with me, we can claim this money without any
suspect whatsoever. I have a planned arrangement for this. My dear, this is
an opportunity that occurs once in a person’s life. This is an opportunity
that can turn out lives around and we will make a better future for our
children.

The reason why I have chosen you for this is on the fact that you are from
the same location from the deceased customer. This will make everything
look real and leaves no suspicion.

I will give you a full detail on the plans to execute this perfectly once
you reply with an interest to team with me to make this happen. Once we
start to work on this, it will take less than two weeks time and the money
will be transferred to any account you will provide. Please do not take
this mail as a joke.

Thanks and best regards,
Mr. Justice Cohen.

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