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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: "George Hall" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <breb43-georgehall@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2018 20:37:15 +0200
Subject: Business Proposal!! HPLTQSYNPL

Hi, my name is Capt. George Hall. I'm an Armour officer in the United States Army, and am going to make this real quick as delay wont be a choice. I have some important packages I would like you to receive for me . I want to assure  you that the packages are 100% legal, not stolen in anyway and does not contain anything that will  get you into any form of trouble.
 
I'm going to be very open with you as I have nothing to hide from you. For the past few months, I have been involved in a few oil deals with some top oil tycoons down here in the middle east of  which the US Army was not aware of, yes, this has so far been a personal project that I embarked on  and I had to keep it that way because of the future.
 
As I write to you now, I was paid the sum of  five million, three hundred thousand USD ($5,300,000) early last month after series of transactions  went well. For safety reasons, I chose to be paid in cash as my bank account is being monitored by  the Army and Uncle Sam.
 
The funds are neatly packed into two military coded open shipping containers and they were stored in a safe location down here until we were attacked by a terrorist  group some days ago which left us with an emergency to evacuate from the current camp base to  somewhere far and out of sight .
 
This has not been good for me because I was going to loose all I  have worked for if I did not come up with something fast. Due to my rank, I was able to get your  details from the DOD data base and then I contacted you.
 
The funds has already been safely shipped  to the United States but is currently in London(the transporter had to pass through London) and right now I need you to work with me with the safe keeping of the boxes until  I return home by the month of December 2018 after which I will be retiring from active duty.
 
Can  you do that for me ? If yes, you would be rewarded with 20% ($1,060,000) of the total funds for your part in this deal and you must keep this as a top secret just between you and I. The boxes would be delivered to you via a very secured means of delivery without any further delay as Military consignments, I'll also give up the current location of the boxes as soon as I am sure we  are on the same page.
 
Let me know if you can work with me, I promise you will never regret working  with me. I will send you my Identity Card and some pictures once we are on same page. Let me say congratulations in advance as you are about to become a millionaire.
 
 
Thanks for your understanding and co-operation
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kind Regards,
 
CPT George Hall

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