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: "Janet Briggs" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <jhagee9@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2013 17:25:34 -0700
Subject: PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT (FINAL NOTIFICATION)

Attn: Beneficiary, I am Mrs. Janet Briggs the chairman of ECONOMIC & FINANCIAL CRIME COMMISSION (EFCC) EFCC in alliance with the Interpol and the European fund exchange commission with the head office here in the United Kingdom. We have been working towards the eradication of fraudsters and scam artists in Africa, UK and some other European countries with the help of the United States government and the united Nation. We have been able to track down some scam artist in various parts of Africa and the United Kingdom and they are all in our custody here in the UK and we have been able to recover a lot of money from them. The United Nation Anti-Crime commission and the united state Government has ordered the money recovered from the scammers to be shared among 100 lucky victims around the global. This email is been directed to you because your email address was found in one of their file and a computer hard disk. You are therefore being compensated with $4.5Million Dollars. We have also arrested all those who claim that they are barristers, bank officials, lottery Agent, PayPal officials, Car buyers, Fraudulent dating who has money for transfer or want you to be the next of kin of such fund which does not exist. We have arranged your payment through the European fund exchange commission and you are to contact the director of operations with the information below: NAME: MR. JOHN HAGEE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. EUROPEAN FUND EXCHANGE COMMISSION. Email: jhagee9@gmail.com TEL: +447937646194 So you are advice to contact the director of operations who would guide you through the completion of this transaction. Do bear in mind that if you do not take this transaction seriously we would have no choice but to terminate this transaction. This transaction would follow due process and it is being monitored to avoid proliferation of information. Yours Sincerely, Janet Briggs

Anti-fraud resources: