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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:

Fraud email example:

From: United Nations <nationsu62@gmail.com>
Reply-To: worldwildclearingdpet@live.com
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:02:35 +0100
Subject: Top Secret


First I must apologize for contacting you if you find my help not worthy.
My problem is that I hate to see people being cheated for no reason. I am a
junior staff at the UN liaison office here in Lagos Nigeria and while going
through some of the files in my office, I discovered that some foreigners
are being used and dumped by some of our Senior Directors, Banks Executives
and the Government officials.

I found out that your payment has long been approved to be released to you
but the greed which exist in the lives of the senior workers will never
allow them to let you have your lottery/inheritance payment.

Please be informed that a payment of $15,900,000.00 (Fifteen Million Nine
Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) only was approved to be paid to you
but this money has not yet been paid out to your account. I have found out
that these top officials are using your money to trade at the International
Market buying stocks and making interest while delaying your payment. These
officials use delay tactics to hold on to your payment while they make
money. They will tell you that your transfer will be made today and when
that time comes, they will come up with another excuse why your payment was
stopped or canceled. Enough of all that.

This payment is as a result of lottery/inheritance which is due to you. In
my further search I found out that some of the Beneficiaries are not even
aware of this payment. They don't even know that such payments exist for
them. I am contacting you secretly believing that you will keep this as top
secret. I want to work with you to move these funds to your account within
72 hours if only you can accept to work with me.

Believe me, if you work with these bank executives, the UN office and the
Government officials, all they will keep doing will be to delay the
transfer while they make more profit with your payment. I have worked out
modalities on how this transfer will be effected to your account
immediately for you to start enjoying your benefits.

Please one thing I must ask of you is to keep this secret until we get the
transfer made to your account. If you will not be able to handle the secret
part of this, please let me know and I will never contact you again because
what I want is to see that justice is done and your money is released to
you. This payment is in your name and belongs to you so you should have it.

I need immediately your current telephone number and address so that we can
begin the process of re approving the funds to your name for possible
transfer within 72 hours.

Once again, I ask that you keep this very secret and confidential until
transfer is confirmed in your account.

Yours faithfully,
Tony Johnson
UN office, Lagos-Nigeria

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