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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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.
Click here to report a problem with this page.
Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "very confidential" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- "dormant account" (Banks mentioned in 419 scams are always fake (real banks don't communicate using mobile phones or free webmail addresses))
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Mr.Maxwell Anthony" <worldbank.un07@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mab74867@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2022 08:30:17 -0700
Subject: Dear sir/madam
Dear Valued Customer,
How are you today? You will be surprised as I am writing this letter to you
because you might not know me. I am a senior Banker here in London. I came
across your file here in the Bank after being transferred from our head
office to replace the foreign operation director in our regional office who
is now
on retirement.
After going through your file, I found out that you have an outstanding
payment here in the Bank with an accrual interest agreement of 6%. I also
went further to verify the account and it came to my notice that the
account is now dormant. Considering the new law passed by the United
Kingdom Government
parliament on dormant accounts, I decided to move this fund out from your
dormant account to an escrow account with us. This is due to the ongoing
Bank
reform here in London which stated that some of the money held in dormant
accounts would be used for charities and social enterprises, meaning that
it will be used to help financially vulnerable and community projects for
you can confirm this in the Sky News website below
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-150m-to-be-released-from-dormant-accounts-for-charities-and-social-enterprises-11991812
This is why you should respond urgently for more guidelines on how this
fund will get to you safely and also keep the details very confidential
because I don't want anything that will dent my name or have my good
reputation destroyed here in the Bank. I am doing this to help you receive
this fund because I don't want the government to claim this fund after
seeing all you have suffered in the past to claim this fund in the hands of
corrupt officials.
I look forward to hearing from you as quickly as possible.
Sincerely,
Mr.Maxwell Anthony
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