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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:
- "i will like you to " (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "% commission" (Beware of any scheme that involves depositing checks or money orders or receiving wire transfers in your bank account and then wiring a portion of the funds somewhere, for a percentage of 5-15% of the total. Such offers are *always* fraudulent and you will be liable for the entire amount when the checks, money orders or wire transfers turn out to be fraudulent. Any money already forwarded comes out of *your* pocket then. )
- "united state of america" (this email uses bad English)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: James Jane <ks8030@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: <jamesjane79@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 04:00:05 +0000
Subject: =?windows-1256?Q?I_have_Gol?= =?windows-1256?Q?d_worth_of?=
=?windows-1256?Q?_$17.5mill?= =?windows-1256?Q?ion=FE?=
Hi,My name is James Jane a Captain in
Army of United state of America, I’m presently on duty against ISIS in
Iraq. I have Gold worth of $17.5million i will like you to help me sale
and i need your urgent help on this because my team will be leaving Iraq
to America soon. Please I want you to help me find anybody interested
in buying the Gold while I make arrangement to ship the Gold box to you
through Cargo so that you can receive and sale it and have 20%
commission from total money made from the sales. Please understand my
condition and help me and also help your self as am ready to give you
20% from selling of the Gold so please help me because I can not move
out of here with the Gold box when going back to my country and if I
leave here without moving the Gold out first to you, I will end up
losing it so please help me. Kindly send your reply to my yahoo email
address so that we can talk from there: jamesjane79@yahoo.comI am waiting for your immediately response.Captain James
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Anti-fraud resources:
