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: "Mrs. Zahra Al-Kamil" <roxamah@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mrszahrafamily@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 16:28:56 +0100
Subject: MY FAMILY NEED YOUR SUPPORT AND PRAYERS !!!!

Dear friend,

How are you doing? I would like to first of all introduce myself to
you because you don't know me. My name is Zahra Al-Kamil; I'm a widow
from the city of Mosul in Iraq. I got your contact after surfing the
internet for a reliable partner, I have been praying and fasting to
Allah for a reliable partner and decided to contact you for your
immediate assistance. I understand that internet is not be best way of
contacting you due to lots of scams, please pardon me because the
postal services is not operational at the moment.

Due to the very bad situation here in Iraq, those of us in the
business circle are finding it very difficult to cope with the
situation, no stable government, bomb explosion at strategic places,
sometimes people find it very difficult to go about their normal
businesses due to fear of being victim of terrorist attack. Above all,
the war in neighboring Syria has made business activities totally
paralyzed for quite some time now. For instance, no good telephone
facilities, no adequate security, in fact, almost all the basic
infrastructure have been destroyed in the on-going war in neighboring
Syria and the environment in Iraq have never been conducive
business-wise.

Why I need your assistance is that I have a very large amount of money
($36.8M) in a bank security vault outside Iraqi. which I inherited
from my late husband who was a major general in Iraqi army in charge
of purchase and maintenance in the past regime of late Sadam Hussein.

My intention is to move the money from the bank security vault and
invest the money in stock market or real estate in your country with
the help of an honest person who will work with me as my foreign
associate. I want to invest most of the money abroad to avoid losing
the money, because it is not wise doing business in the atmosphere of
fear, that's why I am contacting you.

If you can honestly collaborate with me, I am ready to pay you a good
percentage of the total amount if you can sincerely assist me to
actualize this project soon, because the situation here in Iraq is
very critical, the everyday bomb explosion seems to have no end.

If you are ready to assist my family, just email me through my private
e-mail: mrszahrafamily@yahoo.com , please this is in no way a scam, my
family is in dear need of help from you and we shall remain grateful
to whatever help you render to us.

Best regards
Mrs. Zahra Al-Kamil
mrszahrafamily@yahoo.com

Anti-fraud resources: