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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: "Frank & Christiana Williams" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <christgoldwilliams@hotmail.fr>
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 23:49:12 +0100
Subject: Re: Sir/Madam please

Good day Sir/Madam,
 
 
Please dear Sir/Madam, I know you might be surprised in receiving this mail, truly I don’t know you personally but I decided to contact you based on faith and trust because I believe that one has to risk confiding in someone to succeed sometimes in life considering the situations the person find him or herself.
 
My name is Frank and my sister is Christiana Gold, our parents are late Mr. and Mrs. Duncan Sivatte WILLIAMS. I'm 20yrs old while my sister is 16yrs old, we are from Vavoua community in the Republic of Cote d'lvoire.
 
Please dear Sir/Madam, I am constrained to contact you for help because of our current situation, our father and mother has died and we are now receiving maltreatment from our step mother. My mother has earlier died on the 9th of March 2013 in a ghastly accident, we became motherless since then and feeling lonely which obliged my father to take special care over us. Our father then brought in this step mother to be taking care of us.
 
My father was wealthy because he was into cocoa and coffee export business; act of jealousy because of his success, he became a target even of his own blood brothers despite his kindness. He was poisoned to death last year on the 20th day in the month of April, on the occasion of one of their usual business outings and nobody was accused after several investigations till date.
 
Since the unexpected / brutal death of my beloved father, our step mother suddenly became cruel and brutal to us. But her dubious characters against us, including her acolytes who poisoned my father to death has the intention to take away from us all that my late father and mother labored and died for before even her marriage to my late father.(i.e properties and cash)
 
Seriously threatening our lives because they needed all my father’s properties and cash imposing their blind custom and tradition, that I and my sister has no right of inheritance over my father's properties. They have succeeded and collected all the properties from us, yet they never stopped there, but going so far to steal and hideaway my international passport and other valuable school documents treats my life and brings much fears into me.
 
But luckily for us, she has not discovered where I kept my father's important documents file which my father secretly called me on his bedside before his final breath and told me that he has a sum of us$7,358,000 (seven million three hundred and fifty eight thousand united states dollars) left in his business account with a foreign bank in Lome - Republic of Togo, that he used my name for the deposit of the fund as next of kin.
 
With these conditions, it happens as if my father knew what will happen later. However, I collected those papers with me and went into hiding with my sister to avoid them. I also contacted the Bank for the money but the Bank Manager told me that being a refugee, my status according to their law does not authorize me access. However, he advised me to provide a trustee who will stand on our behalf.
 
Thus, I decide to seek for your help in recovering and transferring the money into your bank account for your management and to get some investments done on our behalf as well, also make arrangement for us to come over to your country after the money has been transferred and confirmed in your bank account.
 
I look forward to you with hope and I await your very urgent answer. Email: christgoldwilliams@hotmail.fr
 
Yours faithfully, Frank & Christina Gold Williams

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