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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: "George Powell" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <julianpowell@qq.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 15:19:41 -0600
Subject: THE UNIQUE PROPOSAL

To whom it may concern.
 
My Name is George Powell and i am the General Manager of a particular security company here in one of the Asia country around the world but due to the fact that i regard this message as our first contact, i may not be able to make known to you yet the name of my organizations and the particular country where I’m coming from but it would be of my greatest honour and pleasure to do so after we have contacted each other a couple of times for best of confidence and trust to at first been recognized.
 
Without much exaggeration, it’s of my greatest pleasure to bring to you a proposal for our mutual benefit which is simply about some amount of money lying down in several accounts for years without any one to claim. This is simply because most of these accounts are owned by different men and woman of different countries around the world who are either politicians or workers of a particular oil and gas companies and having made deposit of these funds, they were unable to comply with neither legal documentations of claim for future references nor a next of kin for any reason may be due to lack of control over their wealth or tensions as regards to the current time of making the deposit.
 
Having noted this act for various accounts, here within my monitoring, i would sincerely love to propose to you as to have you come up as the next of kin to one of these accounts which i have personally noted the depositor being dead few months ago whereas the account worth the sum of US$3.5 Million. Kindly be rest assured of your security as long as you are willing to cooperate in this deal.
 
NB
The act will commence prior to the effectiveness of necessary documentations that would warrant the claim of the funds in your name legally as the next of kin without any form of interferences or restrictions from any authority that may be concerned here or in your country.
 
I hereby look forward to your prompt response via my Private email below: julianpowell@qq.com
 
Sincerely,
George Powell

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