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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: "Brian Quest" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <brianquest@post.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 13:40:08 -0700
Subject: Good afternoon, still waiting for our last invesment discussion with you, urgent

Good afternoon to you,
 
Maybe you have forgotten me, but this is the second time I am sending this message to you, and I hope it gets to you this time around to enable me to stop any further contacts. I apologize for the necessity to write you and to become maybe bothersome, but I believe in your ability to prosecute a project of great enormity, please note this is not connected with any deceptive intention as you may imagine.
 
I have a very lucrative project that I would want you and I to execute immediately. There is a quiescent account in my institution here in England. This very account is attached to a client of mine (Mr. Albert J. Stanley) who deposited the funds with us for a very longtime now, my client is a former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KBR Inc, and right now he is currently in confinement as a result of his involvement in inducement scandals.
 
For more details about Mr. Albert Stanley, kindly visit the news link below,
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-kbr-chief-gets-30-months-for-nigeria-bribery/
 
However,  my client Mr. Albert now want his funds with our institution to be transferred into a very safety place for investment purpose pending on his release, in other to avoid the Big Society Capital, a new financial institution set up by the government to finance charities and community groups taken over  his funds. I want you to understand that a quiescent account is when an account is declared inactive after a bank or building society has failed in attempts to contact the account owner, and a result the Financial Security Company and Big Society Capital had in the past sent numerous letters to Mr. Albert Stanley address, but the entire letters bounced back without a reply.
 
Furthermore, before all these misfortune started for my client, he had already informed  me to look for someone to invest his funds outside of England for security reasons, and I am doing exactly what Mr. Albert told me to do by making contact with you to come forward to take full possession of his funds valued Seven Million, Five Hundred Thousand Pounds (7.5MGBP) with our institution.
 
This exercise is very simple and direct to pursue, and for that reason as soon as I get your full consent to participate in the project, I am going to give you provide you with all the necessary information about the project, this includes a Memorandum of understanding to abide us together. For us to proceed, I would like to know your full name, address, age, direct telephone and occupation, this is to enable me to prepare the memorandum of understanding.
 
Please if you have any question, do not hesitate to inform me for further clarification.
 
I will be waiting to hear from you.
 
Contact me through my private email brianquest@post.com
Regards,
Brian Quest.

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