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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: Omar Diallo <omar.diallo010@outlook.com>
Reply-To: <omar.diallo@voila.fr>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2014 09:22:14 +0000
Subject: waiting for your response
Dear friend, I am Omar Diallo, a banker
by profession from Burkina Faso in West Africa and currently holding
the post of Director Auditing and Accounting unit of the bank. It's my
urgent need for a foreign partner that made me to contact you for this
business. I have the opportunity of transferring the left over funds
($11.5 million) of one of my bank clients who died along with his entire
family on 31 July 2000 in a plane crash. You can confirm the
genuineness of the deceased death by clicking on this web site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm
I
need a foreign partner who will support me because i can not claim this
money alone without a foreign partner since the deceased client (the
owner of the fund) was a foreigner.
This fund
($11.5 million) will be shared between us in the ratio of 60/40. I
agreed that 40% of this money will be for you as a respect to the
provision of a foreign account while 60% will be for me and I want to
assure you that this transaction is absolutely legal and risk free since
i work in this bank and i have all the necessary information that might
be needed. Before we proceed, i would like to know your ability to
handle this over there in your country.Please tell me more
about the political/economic stability/monetary policy of your country. I
need to know all these because i don't want to have problem with the
Government of your country.
Kindly update me
with the following information because i want to know you more before we
proceed on this transaction. Hope you will understand the importance of
this request.
1. Your full name........................2. Your age/sex ..........................3. your occupation ................4. Your residential/Postal address ..................5. Country of origin/nationality ..............6. Your private phone number ..................7. Your fax number ...................
I will be waiting for your response hereThanks for your understanding.Have a great day. Yours.Omar Diallo
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