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: "James Nelson" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <dipljamesnelson@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2017 05:01:13 +1100
Subject: MUTUAL INTEREST ON YOUR FUND DELIVERY


*****************************************************************
********************** SPAM REPORT MESSAGE **********************
*****************************************************************

Datagate AntiSPAM detection software has identified this incoming
email as possible spam. The original message report has been
attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or block
similar future email. If you have any questions, please contact
Datagate PostMaster <antispam@postmaster.datagate.net.uk>.

Content preview: Greetings; I am James Nelson Director Inspection Unit United
Nations Inspection Agent in LAX (Los Angeles International).During our investigation,
I discovered An abandoned shipment through a Diplomat from United Kingdom
and Nigeria under our ship forwarder which was transferred from LAX (Los
Angeles International) to our facility here in California and when scanned
it revealed an undisclosed sum of money in a Metal Trunk Box weighing approximately
110kg each. The consignment was abandoned because the Content was not properly
declared by the consignee as money rather it was declared as personal effect
to avoid diversion by the Shipping Agent also the Diplomat inability to pay
for Non Inspection Fees. [...]

Content analysis details: (7.9 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
0.0 FSL_HELO_NON_FQDN_1 FSL_HELO_NON_FQDN_1
0.0 FSL_CTYPE_WIN1251 Content-Type only seen in 419 spam
0.0 NSL_RCVD_FROM_USER Received from User
1.6 SUBJ_ALL_CAPS Subject is all capitals
0.0 LOTS_OF_MONEY Huge... sums of money
0.0 FROM_MISSP_XPRIO Misspaced FROM + X-Priority
0.0 FROM_MISSP_MSFT From misspaced + supposed Microsoft tool
1.3 RDNS_NONE Delivered to internal network by a host with no rDNS
0.0 FSL_NEW_HELO_USER Spam's using Helo and User
0.0 AXB_XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_024C2 Yet another X header trait
1.8 SHARE_50_50 Share the money 50/50
0.0 FROM_MISSP_TO_UNDISC From misspaced, To undisclosed
0.0 FROM_MISSP_USER From misspaced, from "User"
0.0 FROM_MISSP_REPLYTO From misspaced, has Reply-To
0.0 FROM_MISSPACED From: missing whitespace
0.4 MIMEOLE_DIRECT_TO_MX MIMEOLE + direct-to-MX
0.0 T_MONEY_PERCENT X% of a lot of money for you
2.8 FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
0.0 MONEY_FRAUD_8 Lots of money and very many fraud phrases


Datagate AntiSPAM Service <antispam@postmaster.datagate.net.uk>
---------------------------------------------------------------



Anti-fraud resources: