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. Lilian Anthony" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <unitednationspostoffice@mail.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2016 08:06:58 -0700
Subject: Greetings

Greetings,
I am contacting you from United Nations (UN) Anti-Fraud Unit in regards to the extensive raid (arrests) on Internet scammers. Due to the high rate of complain we have been receiving from United Nations (UN) on the level of Scam artists/fraudsters with African nationality. All the Internet Service Providers had noticed the increased email traffic originating from African to other continents.

In this raid, three hundred and six (306) scammers were arrested so far and the raid is still on. We have recovered the total sum of US$ 1.2 Billion from them from both cash and assets confirmed to have come from their victims. As we have found hundreds of thousands of email addresses of victims from their address books including your email and address. It is at this juncture that we are contacting you.

The United Nation (UN) is making refunds through Certified Bank Draft of US$650,000.00 to you as victim. You are therefore advise to urgently contact our protocol personnel Mr. Vincent Adams on his Email address (unitednationspostoffice@mail.com) for further advice on how the Certified International Bank Draft of $650.000) will be forwarded to your disposal

As soon as this is done, the protocol director will as a matter of urgency advice you on the steps to follow without hitches

Mrs. Lilian Anthony
United Nations Anti-Fraud Unit

Anti-fraud resources: