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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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Larry Lalla <efccfraudunit01@gmail.com>
Reply-To: urgentinfo61@yahoo.es
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 10:57:19 -0400
Subject: INTERNATIONAL DEPT RECOVERY BUREAU
Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago
P.O. Box 1250
Eric Williams Plaza
Independence Square
Port of Spain
International Dept Recovery Bureau
Happy New Year to you and your household, It is my humble pleasure to
inform you that I have been called upon as a Financial Expert of
International repute by the World Bank and United Nations to recover all
funds held by various Banks and Organizations in the United Kingdom, South
America and the West Africa Nigeria. This memorandum was reached due to
various complains by some companies and individuals whose funds were either
HELD OR PLACED UNHOLD on transit or confiscated by either the IMF or other
financial securities.
>From the file submitted on my desk, I can authoritatively confirm to you
that you are supposed to have received your funds since last two three
years but you were mislead by some miscreants who wanted to divert and
steal your money to better their own lives. Our intelligence report reveals
that these group of individuals have deceived over one million
beneficiaries and have swindled so many contractor/ fund inheritors of
their hard earned money there by rendering them useless as they wanted to
render you.
Note: I have been in the United States of America and Asian Pacific for
this special fund recovery exercise and gotten all the necessary documents
that will enable me recover and send all payments to their rightful
beneficiaries without any delay. So there is no further time o waste as I
only have only one month to make sure that all approved and true
beneficiaries receives their payment before it will be too late.
Get back to me as soon as you receive this mail with a copy of your
International Passport or any form of identification and your direct
telephone number for effective communication.
Thanks and God bless.
Respectfully,
Mr. Larry Lalla ( Dr.)
Director.
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Anti-fraud resources:
