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: "Mrs Loretta E. Lynch US Attorney-General" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <officialnotificationunderfund@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2016 09:04:40 -0700
Subject: YOUR ATM VISA CARD APPROVED UNDER USA ATTORNEY GENERAL

Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
 
Re-conciliation Letter.
 
 
I am very sorry my late response in contacting you because ever since
i resume this office on 27th April as the new US Attorney General i
was bothered to contact you regarding the abandon files by Eric Holder
which he did not complete before leaving the office.
 
Since i resume this office, i have been bothered by so much things and
the high rate of scam i am receiving every day is the worst thing and
the main issue that makes me to cry every night because many poor
citizens always send me an email on how they lost there life savings
and borrowed from many loan companies and not able to refund
back now which has lead them to many confusion in life.
 
I went for a conference which was held in IMF office London and luckily for me,
the Word Bank director ( Jim Yong Kim) was there when i raised the
issue of high rate of scam and plead them to asign a certain amount
for compensation to scam victims.
 
At the end of the meeting the word bank director (Jim Yong Kim) was
able to approved $8.9 million USD for compensation fund and we
gathered alot of email address of scam victims from many continent of
the world and luckily for you, your email address was among the first
five people to receive to receive there fund within 48 hours.
 
The money is already deposited with Bank Of America (BOA)
and i told them to convert the money to an ATM VISA CARD so that it
will be easy for you to access your fund in any ATM Machine around the
world since is a VISA CARD to avoid any unnecessary fees by the IMF if
the fund was to be transferred to you by wire Transfer.
 
Finally, the ATM VISA CARD is now ready and i will be coming back to
the states with yours and i want to use my hand and deliver it your
house address because i also heard how the delivery company also
require for many fees and never deliver at last.
 
The Bank Of America (BOA)said that since you don't have any
Account with them but the ATM VISA CARD was programmed by them, you
are required to send the Activation fee of $299 so that they will
activate the CARD for you and it must be Activated before they can
release the CARD to me so that you will not have any problem in
withdrawing money from the ATM CARD.
 
The Bank Manager said that you have to send this fee via Money Gram
only with this information.
 
 
Sender's Name:.......
Sender's Address:.....
MTCN:.....
 
Please make sure you write the receivers name completely with no
mistake so that there will be no problem in receiving the money.
 
Note: On no Account, you will charged for any kind of additional fee
because they have assured me about that and i will be the one to
deliver the ATM VISA CARD to you free of charge.
 
Kindly adhere and send the money immediately you receive this mail so
that i will be coming back with your ATM CARD because i have not less
than 24 hours to leave this country.
 
Note: My working ID and Guarantee Letter is attached to this mail for
confirmation. and also kindly feel free to sms me via Tel: +1(615) 266-6137
 
Thanks for your understanding!
 
Regards.
Mrs Loretta E. Lynch
US Attorney-General

Anti-fraud resources: