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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: Johnson Maek <davidmaek12@gmail.com>
Reply-To: maeklaw1@naver.com
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2015 20:09:33 +0200
Subject: Re

Good day Dearest Friend,

With due respect is a pleasure to come in contact with you, and guess
this mail may come to you as a surprise. I am compelled to contact you
via this medium for obvious reason.

My name is Barrister Johnson Maek, I am a Togolese, also I am
privileged to be the legal adviser to one foreign expatriate who
resided in Togo as of 70's and worked in Togo before his death in
2007.I will require your assistant on this matter.

My client had an account with a bank here in Togo amounting to
$14.3mill on USA dollars. The challenges ahead of the fund, is
that,This bank had given me notification to present the relatives
since the beneficiary in no more or the account will be declared
unclaimed.

The account has been in active and nobody has come with prove to claim
the fund and there was no will written before his death, on this note
that: Is why I search and fortunately I come in contact with you, now
I want you to cooperate with me to claim this fund with the bank since
you are a foreigner like my client and also you bear same name.

I don't say he is your relative, in fact I do not know about his
relatives and no record about them nor has he mention where to locate
them,I have confident because there is documented evidence of this
matter to back the claim, we will benefit. So if this proposal is
acceptable to you.

Yours sincerely
Barr. Johnson Maek.

Anti-fraud resources: