joewein.net   joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days
  jwSpamSpy

Home
About Us
Spam
419/Nigeria
Fraud
Contact

"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: "PAUL HARRIS" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <private_harris7@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 22:56:09 +0100
Subject: I NEED YOUR CO-OPERATION...

Greetings,
 
Briefly, I am Paul Harris a staff with the Firstrand Bank South Africa.
 
I discovered a dormant account as a Director. It will be in my interest to transfer this fund worth {$27,000,000} Twenty seven million United States Dollars in an account offshore. If you can be a collaborator to this please indicate interest immediately for us to proceed. This transfer is 100% risk free. I have arranged all the necessary modalities to ensure a successful transfer of the fund.
 
Please this is absolutely confidential, no other person in the bank know about it. This transfer will be concluded within 10 Bank working days if you follow my directives as an insider.
 
Your contact phone numbers and name will be necessary for this effect.
 
Due to confidentiality of this transaction, please reply me on my private email at private_harris77@yahoo.com
 
Regards and respect,
 
Paul Kenneth Harris

Anti-fraud resources: