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: "Mr. James Williams" <james_williams1@live.com>
Reply-To: <james_williams1051@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:41:07 +0000
Subject: Very Urgent




Attention Friend,

I am Mr. James Williams
Abbas from Syria. I am in Africa at the moment as a political refugee
because of the recent problems of my country.

I have a huge sum
of money deposited in a deposit firm and I need your urgent help to
quickly bring out this deposit so that we can invest it under your name
for investment in your country. Because of the on-going crises, all
banks, schools, hospital, market etc. had been on massive destruction
making life very difficult live so this is the only thing left for me
now and I want to use it to start a new life. This transaction requires
immediate attention because of the current political situation in my
country (Syria) and I do not want to lose this money to the rebels or
government.

It is a huge sum of money and I am ready to offer you
30% of the money to stand as the beneficiary to claim the deposit and
and transfer it to your account in your country for investment. I
believe you can help me, but on the contrary please forgive my
indulgence and delete this e-mail content without sharing with anyone.

If
you are interested and able to handle this for me in all honesty
without any betrayal of trust that I shall repose on you then contact me
for more details.Please note that this transaction is confidential and
should be kept in top secret until we have completed the transfer of
fund to your account in your country for investment. Please get back to
me with my private E- mail. (james_williams1051@yahoo.com)

Thank you very much for your understanding.

Regards,
Mr. James Williams Abbas

Anti-fraud resources: