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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: Donald Williams <berrettwilliams@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 19:39:05 +0000
Subject: Business offer

Hello dear,

My name is Donald Williams from Togo republic in Africa, I am the
director in charge of Auditing and accounting section in our bank
here. I crave your indulgence as I contacted you in such a surprising
manner, but I respectfully insist you read this letter carefully as I
am optimistic it will of open doors for unimaginable financial rewards
for both of us.

i am proposing to you that i will present you as the next of kin and
beneficiary to this deposit. This deal shall be done legitimately and
successfully, after the money is transferred to you, I work as a
banker in one of the banks which i will mention to you latter here in
Lome Togo.

In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of Nine Million Five
Hundred Thousand US
Dollars (US$9.5m) in account that belongs to one of our foreign
customers (MRS JOYCE LAKE) An American citizen who died we had a
client who died in a ghastly accident years ago since 2003 a plane
crash with the whole passengers aboard.

Since we got information about her death, we have been expecting her
next of kin to come over and claim her money because the bank cannot
release it unless somebody applies as next of kin or relation to the
deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines, but unfortunately
there is no one that comes for the claim. It is therefore upon this
that I now decided to make this business proposal to you so that the
Money could be released to you as the next of kin or relation to the
deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming
for it and i don’t want this money to go into the bank treasury as
Unclaimed Bill

Our communication will be better if you will contact me through my
email address below for more details about the transaction, and also
we shall discuss about the sharing ratio of the total sum.
Email (williamsdonald494@yahoo.com)

Thanks and Regards.

Donald Williams

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