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: "RBS" (may be fake)
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2017 14:20:55 +0100
Subject: Alert

Dear Customer,

The Royal Bank of Scotland is constantly working to increase security for online banking users. To ensure the integrity of our online payment system & billing records, we periodically review accounts for security purposes. Due to possible errors detected with your Customer Number & billing address. Your account access has been placed on hold. Restricted accounts has there billing information unconfirmed, therefore you are not allow to (Receive payments, Make payments or withdraw funds) until you confirm and update your billing information immediately.

Due to this, to continue banking with us, we request you to follow the below reference to confirm your billing information with us immediately to avoid service suspension.

Login

Please note: If your account billing information is not confirmed and verified within a certain period of time then your ability to access your account would become permanently restricted.

Yours sincerely

© 2005-2017 The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC Security Team

Anti-fraud resources: