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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: "Samuel Malone" <391144915@qq.com>
Reply-To: samuel.malone@yandex.com
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:46:17 -0800
Subject: i sent you an emil last week but you did not reply. here is the email for the last time.

My name is Samuel Malone, Barclays Bank EU Head of Equities Research. I have decided to seek a confidential co-operation with you in the execution of the deal described here-under for our both mutual benefit and hope you will keep it a top secret because of the nature of the transaction. During the course of our bank yearly auditing, I discovered an unclaimed/abandoned fund, sum total of $15.000,000.00 USD (Fifteen Million United States Dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers a citizen of your country.
For 7 years now our bank has been waiting for any of the relatives to come-up for the claim but nobody has done that. I personally have been unsuccessful in locating any of the relatives and nobody knows about this account. I sincerely seek your consent to present you as the next of kin / beneficiary so that the proceeds of this account valued at {USD $15,000,000.00} can be paid to you, which we will share in these percentages ratio, 50% to me and 50% to you.
Our Bank will pay this money to any citizen of your country that has the correct information of the money, which I will give you all the information about the money.
All that I require from you is your sincere co-operation, trust and utmost confidentiality to enable us conduct this transaction successfully. I assure you that this transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law both in your country and here in London once the fund is transferred to your bank account.Please note that we have few days to carry out this deal. This is 100% pure deal.
Thanking you in anticipation for your prompt response.
Warm Regards,
Samuel Malone

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