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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "Mr. Denny DeBlaggio" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <legaldept@citibgroup.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:37:42 -0500
Subject: Agreement on Trust

My name is Mr. Denny DeBlaggio,a fiduciary/accredited Attorney from Citi Bank. I head the management-appointed committee to trace and inform any relation of a deceased bank customer for the release and return of the deceased financial estates. We have been searching for the relation without any success until now hence this communication to you. There are a lot of accounts under the deceased investment portfolios with huge amounts ready to be released by the bank management upon official confirmation by our committee, as we have been appointed to manage the deceased estates as Bank Trust as part of the agreement entered into between the deceased bank customer and the bank management before his death. These deceased investments are part of the offshore private banking and wealth management portfolios the bank outsources and manages for their super-rich clients, of which the deceased bank customer (foreigner) forms part of.

The auditors attached to our committee audited the investment accounts and discovered they have been dormant for many, many years since the death of this bank customer and without any named beneficiary, including family, friend, associate, etc., entrusted to the estates. Meanwhile, the least of the accounts (one in particular) has just a balance of US$16,500,000 (Sixteen Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars). The bank regulation demands that banks must notify the authority after a period when dormant accounts of this type without any known trace is identified. If the bank reports this money to the authority, the authority will immediately confiscate the money or the bank management will re-profile and turn-around the money into the bank's financial operations and claim it, if not reported to the authority. These reasons motivated my resolve to propose re-profiling and re-documenting this fund and transfer it to you directly.

I am 100% convinced that with our insider connections and access, and your involvement, we will safely secure the funds in the account, instead of allowing it pass as unclaimed funds into the hands of the authority and/or the bank. This is exactly why I propose your participation and co-operation. We will provide the back-ups that would facilitate presenting you as the beneficiary of the funds and ultimately transfer the money to an account to be nominated by you. You will keep 40% of the total funds for your participation in this transaction. I shall leave out the further details of this transaction till I receive an affirmation of your desire to participate. Be rest assured that I am in control of this situation all the time and there will be no risk whatsoever if you decide to participate. Needless to say "UTMOST CONFIDENTIALITY" is of vital importance if we are to successfully reap the immense benefits of this transaction.

I await your response to proceed. It will take few days to transfer this money to you on assurance of trust from you.

Kind regards,

D. DeBlaggio

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