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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:
- "liberia" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Frank Badison <f.badison@outlook.fr>
Reply-To: <fbadison@outlook.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 20:30:16 +0100
Subject: E-mail from Frank
Dear Respected.
My greetings to you and your family.
Please allow me to introduce myself to you. I am Frank Badison a 20 years old boy and only son from Liberia, West Africa.
I
like your profile and country and want to confide in you to become my
legal guardian as wished by my late father to receive into your foreign
account my inheritance of US$2.3 million to help me relocate to your
country for good investments and to continue with my education.
Please
this is about my life and future because my wicked uncle wants me dead
so that he can take over all that belongs to my late father.
I lost
my loved family members in the war of my country and recently loose my
father. You can read more from the link below about what charles taylor
and his son did to my father and country which is the begining of my
family's problems.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/10/20081030222544664954.html
Please can i trust you about this??
Best wishes.
Frank Badison.
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Anti-fraud resources:
