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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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:
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "may come to you as a surprise" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "top secret" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- "united state of america" (this email uses bad English)
- "lome togo" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: andrew samba <andrewsamba22882@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 09:23:17 +0000
Subject: Bill and Exchange assistant Manager
My Dearest,
I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise, I got your contact
address from the computerized search. My name is Mr. Andrew Samba, I am the
Bill and Exchange (assistant) Manager of our Bank here in Lome Togo.
In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of Ten Million Seven hundred
thousand United State of American Dollars (10.7 M USA Dollars) in an
account that belongs to one of our foreign customer Mr Kurt Kuhle from
Alexandra Egypt who died along with his family in Siber airline that
crashed into sea at Isreal on 4th October 2001.
Since I got information about his death I have been expecting his next of
kin to come over and claim his money because we can not release it unless
somebody applies for it as the next of kin or relation to the deceased as
indicated in our banking guidelines, but unfortunately we
learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with
him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is therefore
upon this discovery that I decided to make this business proposal to you
and release the money to you as next of kin or relation to the deceased for
safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I
don't want the money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill.
Am contacting you because our deceased customer is a foreigner and a
Togoliase can not stand as a next of kin to foreign customer. The banking
guidelines stipulate that the fund should be transferred into the bank
treasury after (12) years if nobody is coming for the claim.
I have agreed that 33% of this money will be for you as foreign partner in
respect to the provision of your account for the transfer, 2% will be set
aside for expenses that might occurred during the business and 65% would be
for me, after which I shall visit your country for disbursement according
to the percentage as indicated.
Please I would like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a top
secret as you may wish to know that I am a bank official.
Yours Sincerely
Mr Andrew Samba
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