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: " Senator Paul Eze.Jr" <heritagemusicaward5@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2012 01:11:06 -0800
Subject: How Are You Today?

Hello,
My name is Senator Paul Eze a serving senator of the federal republic
of Nigeria.I want to know if you can handle funds from my client
Senator Mohammad Hassan who is presently indisposed due to his
position.
The funds is presently in a holding company in Europe and we are
looking for capable and trusted person to stand and claim the funds as
the beneficiary to the funds and invest it in any viable business with
good ROI for a term period of 5 years.

If you can handle this then get back to me with your contact details
for further details.

I await your response.

Thanks
Senator Paul

Anti-fraud resources: