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: "Henry Amandigo" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <info233@terra.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2012 18:30:33 -0500
Subject: Treated as Urgent

My Dear Friend,
I am Henry Amandigo a former minister of finance in Abidjan and ally to the
ousted former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo. I am presently taking
refuge in Ghana Before he was sentence to person.
I am contacting you in respect of the sum of $36,00,000 Million American
Dollars, that is deposited in a trust secret vault SECURITY Company in France,
The deposit documents to this consignment boxes have not been handed over to
Former President Laurent Gbagbo by me before he was person.
I on my return from that trip from France in which I went to lodge this sum of
$36,00,0000 Million American USD, I have been on house arrest and refused
traveling out of Ivory Coast by what the present day government tag Security
Reasons.
These two consignments boxes have been in the secret vault in France non by me
alone and I am not comfortable with this, so I have decided to contact you as to
change the name of the benefactor to your name and have the boxes deliver to you
for safe keeping.
I am offering you 20% of this funds and once you indicate your interest and
acceptance I will forward you the access password to this secret vault so that
you can contact the security company in question on line and be certain about
the transaction I am contracting you for but this will not grant you access to
operate the consignments delivery so let not think of playing on issue order
intelligence.
I look forward to hearing from you if you will be sincere in this transaction.
Regards

Anti-fraud resources: