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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:

Fraud email example:

From: "OFFICE OF THE WORLD BANK /IMF" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <onlinesafety.imf2016.gh@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2017 03:27:30 -0500
Subject: Possible Spam : ATTENTION: Distinguished beneficiary,

ATTENTION: Distinguished beneficiary,
 
Our independent financial security monitory agents have just confirmed your dealings with some unauthorized impersonated staffs of various existing and non-exiting government organizations operating from different offices, we are contacting you today because we are taking over your Online Safety, We all know that the rate of fraudsters and scammers online are so much that we all receive at least 80-100 hoax messages per day, all those stories are lies used by fraudsters to extort money from people.
We wish to congratulate and inform you that after a detailed review and due assessment by the World Bank/IMF Global Financial Stability Board and the President of Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari has constituted a 14 man investigative Panel and foreign Debts reconciliation committee, which I am the Chairman of the presidential committee saddled with  the responsibility to investigate all the banks here in Nigeria and the rest in african.
 
As institutions to United Nations, the New Reform Debt Management Board has assigned this office to liquidate all external creditors bills in this first quarter of fiscal year 2017 by cutting all foreign  down to $4.8m to each beneficiary.
 
Henceforth, this is your payment reference number (WB-IMF PVA ID:824707), we advise you to stop further communications either by email, fax or telephone upon the receipt of this message or you might as well continue with them but please remember to note this phrase, you will never receive one dollar cent outside our organization since your payment release manifest booklet is registered under our abode.
 
Below are the information you are expected to re-confirm:
 
(1) Full Name:.........
(Your Names as preferred on the ATM Master CARD)
(2) Address:...............
(Delivery Address)
(3) Copy of any of your Valid ID ........
(For Identification purpose only)
 
Please feel free to contact for further clarifications regarding this matter.
 
With regards,
Mr Austine Cliford
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Anti-fraud resources: