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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: "Federal Bureau of Investigation" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <fbi.dav@usa.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 04:23:19 -0700
Subject: READ CAREFULLY AND RESPOND BACK IMMEDIATELY

FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20535-0001
(202) 314-3000
OUR REF: RTB /TUV/XCX
To: Beneficiary :

I am F.B.I David Jackson. And I am among the special agents delegated by the United Nations to Africa to investigate fraudsters who has been swindling Foreigners that came for transaction/contracts in Africa.
Please be informed that during our investigation, we got to find out that you were scammed a huge sum of money by Africans via Western union and Money Gram. So, in this case, the United Nations has mandated that you must be compensated with the sum of Two Million Six Hundred Thousand United States Dollars ($2,600,000.00 USD) for been a victim.

Note that the said fund will be transfer to you via the Kasikorn Bank of Thailand being the paying bank mandated by the United Nations officials.

However, we have to inform you that we have been able to arrest some of the swindlers who has scammed you of your hard earned money. Please be informed that we have limited time to stay back here, so we will advise you to urgently respond to this message ASAP. And do not inform any of the people that collected money from you before now about this new development to avoid jeopardizing our investigation. All you need to do is to follow our instruction and receive your compensation
accordingly as directed by the United Nations.

We urgently wait to receive your response.

Reply back to:

Regards,
DAVID JACKSON
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
INVESTIGATION ON ALL ONLINE WIRE TRANSFER

Anti-fraud resources: