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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: "Mrs. Mary Edward" <mrsmaryedward@126.com>
Reply-To: maryedwardmrs@yahoo.com.hk
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 10:32:25 +0200
Subject: My greetings.



Mail from Mrs. Mary Edward.
Greetings my friend,

I am Mrs. Mary Edward contacting you with good faith believing that
you will assist me in carrying out my wish. I married to Mr. Fillipon
Edward an Italian citizen and an engineer by profession. He is a
successful business man. He handled and executed perfectly many
construction contracts for Italian government. He is also in charge of
developing structures in many Italian embassies in many countries.
Recently his business partners assassinated him because of huge
payment (eur120 million) from Italian government representing final
payment for one of the contracts they have completed. They planned and
killed him in other to share among them his 80% share of the money
paid by the government.

For the past 18 months, I am badly sick with cancer problem. As I am
writing this mail, I am in the hospital as my health status refuses to
improve and my two children are under hiding so that their father?s
assassins will not trace and harm them. Last week, our family lawyer
visited me in the hospital and advice me to leave the present general
hospital that I am to a government own cancer home here in England so
that my security will be taken care of and also reminded me the need
to evacuate the sum of $18,700,000 my husband deposited in a security
company to a trusted hand who will manage the fund to train my
children. Base on his advice, we are moving to the home this night.
My lawyer tried for me to obtain required documents from U.K
government to enable me stay permanently at the cancer center till the
last day of death.

Now I am contacting you base on two requests: (A) To assist me to move
the money to your country and when you have confirmed the fund being
in your care, I and my two children will come over to your country to
invest the money. (B) To source for us good and enterprising business
that we can invest the money like real estate, infrastructure, Health,
production, education or into other business sectors that you can
handle very well and can give good return at the end of every season.

Kindly get back to me confirming your interest in receiving the fund
and to assist us on the investment. For assisting me to receive the
money for safe keeping before the investment, I will share to you 35%
of the total fund and in addition, you will be our investment manager
until when my children will take over the investment. Send your reply
to edwardmarymrs@yahoo.com.hk
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. Mary Edward






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