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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "hundred thousand us dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "cotonou" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- "federal republic of benin" (Benin, Cameroon, etc. are no Federal Republics, unlike Nigeria where this type of scam was invented)
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: Farhan Waqar <farhan.waqar9@gmail.com>
Reply-To: abbasim001@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:41:54 +0100
Subject: Hello dear
Hello dear
I am Abbas Aasim, Senior Accountant & the Auditor General Manager of BOA
Bank, of the Federal Republic of Benin. I work with BOA Bank in Cotonou
Benin Rep. It is my wish to solicit your assistance in a business
opportunity that will be benefited for you and I.
During our investigation and Auditing in my Bank, in my department I came
across an abandoned sum of money (Two Million One Hundred Thousand US
Dollars) In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer late
Mrs.F.A Auw, a citizen of your country who died along with her entire
family.I wish to know if we can work together. I would like you to stand as
her Next of Kin to a Fixed Deposit of US$2.1M which she made to our Bank.
She died and left nobody behind as her Next of Kin.
The Funds can be transferred to you either through Bank to Bank wire
transfer into any account of your choice or by ATM CARD. The reason why I
contacted you is that after 2 months from now the Bank Directors will share
this Funds within themselves.Here is the Website of the incident;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3348109.stm
Please get back to me If you are interested to know much about this
transaction.
Regards
Mr Farhan Waqar
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Anti-fraud resources:
