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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: "Mr.patrick Joseph" <mrpatrickj09@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2015 14:22:27 +0200
Subject: Greetings My Dear Friend,

Greetings My Dear Friend,

Before I introduce myself, I wish to inform you that this letter is
not a hoax mail and I urge you to treat it serious. This letter must
come to you as a big surprise, but I believe it is only a day that
people meet and become great friends and business partners. Please I
want you to read this letter very carefully and I must apologize for
barging this message into your mail box without any formal
introduction due to the urgency and confidentiality of it.

With due respect to your person and much sincerity of purpose, I make
this contact with you as I believe that you can be of great assistance
to me. My name is Mr.Patrick Joseph from Burkina Faso, West Africa. I
work with the Africa Development Bank (ADB) as Telex manager. Please
see this as a confidential message and let me know whether you can be
of assistance regarding my proposal.

I am about to retire from active Banking service to start a new life
but I am skeptical to reveal this particular secret to a stranger. You
must assure me that everything will be handled confidentially because
we are not going to suffer again in life. It has been 10 years now
that most of the greedy African Politicians used our bank to launder
money overseas through the help of their Political advisers. Most of
this funds which they transferred out of the shores of Africa were
gold and oil money that was supposed to have been used to develop the
continent.

Their Political advisers always inflated the amounts before
transferring to foreign accounts, so I also used the opportunity to
divert part of the funds hence I am aware that there is no official
trace of how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such
transfers were being closed after transfer. I acted as the Bank
Officer to most of the politicians and when I discovered that they
were using me to succeed in their greedy act, I also cleaned some of
their banking records from the Bank files and no one cared to ask me
because the money was too much for them to control. They laundered
over $5 billion Dollars during the process. Before I send this message
to you, I have already diverted ($10.million Dollars) to an escrow
account belonging to no one in the bank. The bank is anxious now to
know who the beneficiary to the funds is because they have made a lot
of profits with the funds. It is more than Eight years now and most of
the politicians are no longer using our bank to transfer funds
overseas. The ($10.million Dollars) has been laying waste in our bank
and I don't want to retire from the bank without transferring the
funds to a foreign account to enable me share the proceeds with the
receiver (a foreigner). The money will be shared 60% for me and 40%
for you. There is no one coming to ask you about the funds because I
secured everything. I only want you to assist me by providing a
reliable bank account where the funds can be transferred.

You are not to face any difficulties or legal implications as I am
going to handle the transfer personally. If you are capable of
receiving the funds, do let me know immediately to enable me give you
a detailed information on what to do. For me, I have not stolen the
money from anyone because the other people that took the whole money
did not face any problems. This is my chance to grab my own life
opportunity but you must keep the details of the funds secret to avoid
any leakages as no one in the bank knows about my plans. Please get
back to me if you are interested and capable to handle this project, I
shall intimate you on what to do when I hear from your .If you are
capable of being my trusted associate do declare your consent to me. I
am looking forward to hear from you immediately for further
information.

Thanks with my best regards.
MR.PATRICK JOSEPH
Telex Manager
African Development Bank(ADB)
Burkina Faso.

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