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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:

Fraud email example:

From: Benson Godfrey <godfreybenson0@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 22:28:06 +0200
Subject: <BUSINESS PROPOSAL>ATTENTION PLEASE:


--
From:MR:Benson Godfrey,
AN External Auditor.
The International Remittance Department
No. 70 Wig-more Ave.
W1U 2SF, London UK.

ATTENTION PLEASE:

Please do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your
personal ethics although, I wish to use this medium to get in touch with
you first because it's fastest means. My name is Mr.Benson Godfrey, I am an
external auditor of a well known bank here in the United Kingdom.

In one of our periodic auditing I discovered a dormant account with holding
balance of £26,000,000 (Twenty six Million British Pounds Sterling) which
has not been operated for the past Six to seven years. From my
investigations and confirmations,I confirmed that the owner of this
account, a foreigner by name Mr.John Shumejda died in plane crash on the
4th of January 2002 and since then nobody has done anything as regards the
claiming this money because he has no family members who are aware of the
existence of neither the account nor the funds. For more details
visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/1742404.stm

I got your mail from the internet through my secretary when I told her that
I need an email address where I will send a confidential message because
she knows how to browse internet but she is not aware of this business.

You should know that I am not doing this business because of the large
amount that is involved on it but rather the success of this business will
benefit both families from generation to generation as far as you follow
the instruction which I will be getting from our Insider in Bank, and you
should know that never a business to succeed without building trust to each
other. I promise you that I will never let you down in this business either
now in the future and you assure me that as well. In-fact , I am very much
interested to know whether you will be capable to do this business with me
in full confidence trusting that you will never let me down in future.

I have secretly discussed this matter with a top senior minister official
of the federal ministry of finance here and we have agreed to find a
reliable foreign partner to deal with us although due to his position, he
did not want to take active part but as soon as you follow my instructions
everything will be successful because we will be working hand in hand with
him and there will be documents of transfer to prove that the money going
into your a/c is free from Drug/terrorist and money laundering, once I
received your a/c information for processing of the Documents.

We thus propose to do business with you, standing in as the next of kin of
these funds from the deceased and after due legal processes have been
followed, the fund will be released to your account without delay and we
will use it for investment and to assist the less privileged in the Society
because if we left the fund with the government it will be fortified for
nothing and will be used to suppress the poor masses in the society.

This transaction is totally free of risk and troubles as the fund is
legitimate. Upon the successful transfer of the fund to your account, you
will be given 40% of the total amount while 60% will be for me.

I look forward to hear from you as soon as possible if you are interested.
you can contact me on my yahoo account at godfrey6555@yahoo.com,

Regards,
Mr.Benson Godfrey.

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