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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: (sent from abused email account)
Reply-To: <tonadejoseph@yahoo.com.ph>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2014 10:52:26 -0700
Subject: I NEED YOUR HAND IN THIS

Dear friend,
Please don’t be surprise to receive this letter. I decided to contact you by email due to the urgency of this business at hand. I am M Joseph Tonade, one of the chief accountants of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The NNPC are in charge of extracting and selling Nigeria crude oil. Since the beginning of 2007 there has been increase in the price of crude oil at the Opec international oil market and all the oil producing countries has made billions of dollars because of the high of crude oil price and my country has benefited so much because of the excess crude oil sales.
During our recording and auditing of excess crude oil fund sales, I was opportune as the chief accountant of the NNPC to discover an excessive crude oil Sum, amounting into millions of dollars, and the excess amount is in an escrow account in one of the commercial banks safe, ready to be transfer into a trustworthy person’s account, that we will thereafter have the share of the sum in one accord.
We will only secure documents that will authenticate you as the foreign contractor , thereby we process all relevant documents pertinent to the claim and effect the transfer of the funds into your bank account thereafter we come over to your country or wherever you have the account for disbursement as we may agreed.
Note: There’s no risk in this transaction, provided we keep every details information’s to ourselves only, till success is recorded.
Truly yours,
Mr.Joseph Tonade

Anti-fraud resources: