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: Zainal <kengustin757@yahoo.co.jp>
Reply-To: Zainal <zxx777sa@yahoo.fr>
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 08:29:06 +0900 (JST)
Subject: Hello Dear Please Help,


Hello Dear Please Help, 
Help me and my kids in Syria my husband moved funds out of our country to abroad, on his way back to manage to rescue us out of this civil war before he was killed by ISIL....Help us please we are helpless and stranded here, I'm ready to offer you 20% out of the total amount as compensation; After helping me secure the entire money for the sake of my two kids future, the amount involved is total sum of $ 17.8M (USD) which was packaged in a trunk money for safety reasons. Upon your acceptance to help me, I’ll give you more details, please can you help me with buying a house too?
Anticipating your quick reply,
Sincerely yours,
Zainal.

Anti-fraud resources: