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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:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "nigeria national petroleum corporation" (the name of a person or institution often appearing 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: sanda fagi <sandafagi@yahoo.co.uk>
Reply-To: sanda fagi <wadzani.daniel@yandex.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 10:59:23 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: hello friend
 Dear friend,
It's nice meeting you for this wonderful opportunity. I am Daniel Wadzani (member of board, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC). I 've been mandated to contact you in respect of certain financial over lapse in our corporation.
It has been a pain and rigorous exercise to contact you weighing your parameters and antecedence. You would be required to work with me directly as long as this communication lasts. The financial over lapse was as a result of an over sight function of one of the accountants in the office who is also a confide member of this process. This involves certain amount of money in US Dollars ready to be transferred through our apex bank. The money came as a result of excess budget for acquisition of two operational aircrafts and liquidity within the corporation. I would like to know how much your bank account(s) can accommodate in a single transfer so that we can structure the transfer to suit the account to avoid suspicions.
Every transfer made into your account would be shared between you and my side on 40% and 60% basis respectively. We have made everything possible without or little efforts from you to stand for it.
However, in an event of unavoidable, alternative arrangement could be used to sign for the fund. If this is okay by you, do please write back to know how to go about it. I am waiting for your reply anytime soon.
Thank you.
Daniel Wadzani.
(Board member).
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Anti-fraud resources:
