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: "Miss Astou" <noreply@outlook.com>
Reply-To: msastoueva@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 20:43:31 -0700
Subject: Read and Reply Quickly

Trust this message finds you in good health. I am a banker and am contacting you today in confidence, i want to know if you have a valid bank account that could accept millions of US Dollars. If you do, reply quickly so that i can open up to you about a secret business that is legit and absolutely risk-free. It must be only between two of us. No third party should be involved.

Contact me through my private email below for security and privacy reasons msastoueva@gmail.com

With regards
Miss Astou

Anti-fraud resources: