joewein.net   joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days
  jwSpamSpy

Home
About Us
Spam
419/Nigeria
Fraud
Contact

"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: "Mr.Tosin Oshodi" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <t.oshodi@live.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:57:44 +0400
Subject: Good Day,

Good day,
 
    I am Mr.Tosin Oshodi Executive Director National Bank of Abu Dhabi. I personally discovered a dormant account with a total sum of $9,500,000.00 NINE MILLION FIVE HUNDREND THOUSAND DOLLARS, during our Bank's Annual Year Account Auditing.
 
Since the death of the deceased, nobody has operated in this account till date. Moreover, this account has NO BENEFICIARY attached to it. Definitely, this fund will be confiscated by our BANKING CODE OF ETHICS if it remains dormant for period of [10] years without any claims. In this regard, I earnestly need your full cooperation in transferring this money out of our bank to avoid our bank confiscating this fund.
 
HOW THE TRANSACTION CAN BE HANDLED: As the Executive Director of our bank, all our client account details and file are in my possession and that makes it easy for me to include your name as the beneficiary of the fund in all necessary documents involving the money we wish to transfer out from our bank.Most importantly, you will be required to:
 
Your full name and contacts information to act as the original beneficiary of the funds and receive the funds into a business/private bank account. At the completion of this transaction, the sharing rates shall be 50% for me while 50% for you.
 
I WILL TRUST IN YOU OK
I AWAIT YOUR URGENT REPLY
 
Best Regards
 
Mr.Tosin Oshodi
National Bank of Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirate

Anti-fraud resources: