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: Mary Mohomend <barristerjameswilliam22@gmail.com>
Reply-To: marymohomend2016@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2016 09:43:06 -0700
Subject: Change of Ownership Alert 1

Attn;

I'm Mary Mohomend the Chief Director of Finance Officer of the
Ministry of Finance. We wish to urgently confirm from you if actually
you know one Mrs. Cynthia Edward who claims to be your business
associate/partner. Kindly reconfirm this application put in by Mrs.
Cynthia Edward - she submitted the under listed bank account
information supposedly sent by you to receive the funds on your
behalf. The bank information she applied with are stated thus:

Account Name: Edward Mike
Bank name: Citi Bank NA
Bank address: #1230 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA
Account Number: 013439887655
Routing Number: 2771722
Swift Code: CITIUS30

The said Mrs. Cynthia Edward has claimed to this office that you are
dead and have Instructed that all relevant documentation /Information
regarding your Payment/Transfer, should be changed to her name as the
beneficiary of the payment short-listed among the foreign
beneficiaries entitled to receive their payment.

For your Information, this Government has approved the total amount of
EIGHT MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS ONLY, in
your favor, prior to the Federal Government instructions/mandate to
offset all outstanding payments to the various legal foreign
beneficiaries around the world and your payment file was affected. We
need to confirm from you if it's really true that you are dead as made
mention by your Associate.

You should note that, if we do not hear from you, we automatically
assume that you are actually dead and the information passed to us by
Mrs. Cynthia Edward is correct. Hence, you are hereby requested to
reply this Email immediately for confirmation, before we proceed with
this payment and for us to know the true position of things with you
so that we won't make any mistakes/errors in remitting your
out-standing payment to a wrong person/account.

Lastly, you are advice to reply back this email and reconfirm the
details of this message if truly you're alive contact us immediately
and bear in mind that you will pay needed renewal of your payment file
fee which is sum of $70 only in this office and the fees must be paid
before we will release your fund in your account today/tomorrow,

Full name.......................... ..........
Direct telephone number......................
Address....................... ...............
Age........................... ...............
Occupation.................... ...............
Country....................... ...............

Once you notify us with the above information and the needed renewal
of your payment file fee which is sum of $70, we will release your
fund within next 24hour you meet up with the fees and payment should
be sent with the below information through western union money
transfer bellow and we discontinued no C.O.D.

Receiver name_____KEN ALEX
Country____________Benin republic
City________________Cotonou
Text question_______How long?
Answer_____________Today.
Sender name_______
Amount expected____$70.only
Mtcn _____________

Reported by Mary Mohomend
Your quick respond is highly needed.

Anti-fraud resources: