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: "Mr.Walker Smith" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <camdenaurthur@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 23:49:03 -0800
Subject: Payment Release Notification From The US OFFSHORE CREDIT UNION BANK.

Payment Release Notification From The US OFFSHORE CREDIT UNION BANK.


This is to officially inform you that we have been instructed to release your over due contract Inheritance/ lottery Payment of $10.5 million to you without any further, and we will have no other option than to believe that you are dead as claimed by one Mrs. Margaret Thomason if you fail to respond back to our email this time.

As a matter of fact, we lost your Full Personal/ banking details after our annual system upgrade which made it impossible for us to contact you, and we were only able to find your email address after several search’s on our documents.

Few weeks ago, a woman named Mrs. Margaret Thomason sent a letter to our bank here in the United States claiming that you are dead and she further stated that before you died, you informed her about your contract Inheritance/ lottery payment worth $10.5 million which is presently under our custody.

Note that Mrs. Margaret Thomason also sent a copy of your death certificate to us in other to make her claim authentic, but we did not believe her because you had never mentioned her as your next of kin to us.

In fact, she has given us every reason to believe that you are dead as she claims, and she is ready to take care of what ever it will cost her to get your funds transferred into her personal account, but I have been instructed by the management of this bank to contact you this last time in order to be sure that you are dead as she claimed,before releasing the payment to her.

So are you dead or are you still alive? If yes, you have been advised to urgently reconfirm your full personal/ banking details as requested below to us immediately, in order for us to cancel every further arrangement in regards to the release of your fund to Mrs. Margaret Thomason.


However, We Shall Proceed To Issue All Payments Details To The Said Mrs. Margaret Thomason If We Do Not Hear From You Within 48 banking hours.

Your Urgent attention is needed if you are still alive.

Yours Faithfully,


For And On Behalf Of
US OFFSHORE CREDIT UNION BANK

Mr.Walker Smith
President and CEO Bank of America

Anti-fraud resources: