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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: "Lawson Stanley" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <lawsonstanley2009@yahoo.fr>
Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2017 10:17:18 -0800
Subject: My Dear Good Friend,

My Dear Good Friend,

My name is Lawson Stanley, a national of India I am working as an accountant general and head of the Auditing Dept of Bridge Bank Cote d`Ivoire.

Our deceased and his wife including their three children were involved in the ill fated Kenya Airways crash in the coasts of Abidjan in January 2009 in which all the passengers on board died and since then we have made several inquiries to your embassy to locate any of our clients extended relatives but has been unsuccessful After several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his last name over the internet, to see if I could locate any member of his family hence I contacted you and it is of particular interest based on his huge deposit with our bank here, where the deceased has an account valued at about ($million US dollars)

They have issued the accounting department of this bank a notice to provide the next of kin or the bank will declare the account un-serviceable and thereby send the funds to this country treasury bank account as unclaimed fund.

Since we all have been unsuccessful in locating any of his relatives for over last five years now, I will seek for your consent to present you as the next of kin to our deceased client, to us proceeds to secure every necessary required documents to the his account valued at ($million US dollars) to enable this bank foreign remittance department transfer the funds into your bank account and then both of us will share the fund.

All I require from you is your honest cooperation to enable us seeing this deal through. I guarantee you that this will be executed under all legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law in your country.

If you are replying my mail, I want you to give me your full names, address, date of birth, telephone and fax numbers for proper communications.

Thanking you for your anticipated cooperation
Mr. Lawson Stanley.

Anti-fraud resources: