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: Philip Barnet <csd3342@csd.uoc.gr>
Reply-To: philip_barnet@aol.com
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:47:47 +0200
Subject: Proposal



Good day,
Let me introduce myself , I am Philip Barnet, Staff of Investec Bank
(England). I am contacting you concerning Anthony, a deceased customer
and an investment he placed under our banks management 8 years ago. I
would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail
confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by
as a result of this mail. I contacted you independently of my
investigation and no one is informed of this communication. I would
like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of
interest to you. In 2004, the subject matter; Mr Anthony came to our
bank to engage in business discussions with our private banking
division. He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of Fifty
million united states dollars, which he wished to have us turn over
(invest) on his behalf. I was the officer assigned to his case; I made
numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the De-factor chief
operations officer of the private banki
I encourage and gave advice on how the funds should be invested, Based
on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and made
attractive margins for our first months of operation, the accrued
profit and interest stood at this point at over 2 million United
States Dollars, this margin was not the full potential of the fund but
he desired low risk guaranteed returns on investments. This bank also
gives the choice to depositors of having their mail sent to them or
held at the bank itself, ensuring that there are no traces of the
account and as I said, rarely they do not nominate next of kin.
Most Private banking clients apart from not nominating next of kin
also usually in most cases leave wills in our care, in this case; the
deceased died without a testate. In line with our internal processes
for account holders who have passed away, we instituted our own
investigations in good faith to determine who should have right to
claim the estate. This investigation has for the past months been
unfruitful.
We have scanned every continent and used our private investigation
affiliate companies to get to the root of the problem. It is this
investigation that resulted in my being furnished with your details as
a possible relative of the deceased. My official capacity dictates
that I am the only party to supervise the investigation and the only
party to receive the results of the investigation. What this means, is
that our dear late fellow died with no known or identifiable family
member.
In the process of review of our financial report by my department, I
discovered that both of you have a similar last name; hence I
contacted you so that I can give you further briefing on my intention
and how to disburse the funds and estate he left behind. My proposal;
you share the same surname with our late client; I am prepared to
place you in a position to instruct the Bank to release the deposit to
you as the closest surviving relation. Upon receipt of the deposit, I
am prepared to share the money with you in half. That is, I will
simply nominate you as the next of kin and have them release the
deposit to you. We share the proceeds 50/50.
As a banker we see so much cash and funds being re-assigned daily. I
would want us to keep communication for now strictly by email Please
and phone number i will provide you when next i read from you, note I
am a family man; I have a wife and children. I send you this mail not
without a measure of fear as to the consequences, but I know within me
that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches
never come easy or on a platter of gold. This is the one truth I have
learned from my private banking clients. Do not betray my confidence.
If we can be of one accord, we should act swiftly on this.
Please get back to me immediately for further communication via my
personal email at philip_barnet@aol.com
I await your response.
Regards,
Philip Barnet.
philip_barnet@aol.com

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.


Anti-fraud resources: