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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: "Kone Ado" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ado.kone496853@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 20:48:20 -0000
Subject: Very urgent (From Ado Kone )

Hello ,

I am Mr. Kone Ado, the principal treasury officer with one of the prime banks in Ivory Coast. I have a business proposal which will be of mutual benefit to us. Our bonafide customer died years ago leaving no next of kin behind , he is from your country and i am making this contact to you because you have same last name with the deceased and our branch has served a notice about this fund, therefore i want you to stand as the deceased relative for the fact that you have same name with the deceased so that we can move the fund to your account to avoid confiscation.

Reply immediately if you are interested, then i will give you more details about this fund.

Regards,

Mr Kone

Anti-fraud resources: