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.Bob England" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <bobeng1957@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2017 02:15:45 +0200
Subject: I am glad to find your contact.!!!

Dear Friend,

My name is Mr. Bob England. I am the manager of the Banque Atlantique, Kegue branch. I am a Togolese married with kids. I am writing to solicit your assistance in the transfer of us$4,250.000.00.This fund is the excess of what my branch in which I am the manager made as profit during the last year. I have already submitted an approved end of the year report for the year 2015 to my head office here in Lome and they will never know of this excess.

I have since then, placed this amount of us$4,250.000.00 on a suspense account without a beneficiary. As an officer of the bank, I cannot be directly connected to this money thus I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive this money into your bank account. I intend to part 30% of this fund to you while 70% shall be for me. I do need to stress that there are practically no risk involved in this. It's going to be a bank-to-bank transfer. All I need from you is to stand as the original depositor of this fund.
Waiting for your positive response:
Yours sincerely,

Mr. Bob England,

Anti-fraud resources: