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: "Egna Martin" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <egnamartin@ymail.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2017 04:04:12 +0100
Subject: Your Response

Dear friend,

I am Mr.Egna Martin, the assistant Manager in one of the Prime Banks here in Cote D’Ivoire, West Africa. I wish to place your name as the beneficiary to US$4.2 (Four Million Two Hundred Thousand Dollars). This fund originally belongs to one of our foreign Customer who died in the year 2009, and has been dormant for these years without Claim as the customer did not declare his next of kin in the bank official papers.

Since I gathered all the information about this abandoned money, I am contacting you because you share the same last name, hence my proposal that the money be released to you as next of kin to the deceased. Failure to do this the money will be forfeited into the government treasury as unclaimed fund. Understand that the deceased customer is a foreigner and an Ivorian cannot be next of kin to foreign customer. I discovered your contact through a comprehensive web search.

I have also agreed that 20% of this money will be for you as foreign partner in respect to the provision of your account for the transfer, 9% will be set aside for any expenses that might occurred during the business and 71% would be for me, after which I shall visit your country for disbursement according to the percentage as indicated.

On your confirmation of this message and indicating your interest, I will draft an application FOR CLAIM which you will sign and return to the bank for the claim, and transfer of the money into your designated bank account details.

Please I would like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a top secret, and understand I am in charge here as much as I have your co-orperation you are not to nurse any fear concerning the fund getting to your bank account.

Regards,
Mr.Edwin Egna Martin.

Anti-fraud resources: