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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:

Fraud email example:

From: James Costos <senatorrichardburr1111@gmail.com>
Reply-To: previte@daum.net
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2022 11:12:12 -0600
Subject: DEAR BENEFICIARY30

Finance/Remittance Department Director
Int'l. Wire Transfer/Telex Department,
International Monetary Fund,(IMF).
Address: 700 19th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20431.
Business Hours: Monday–Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (ET).
Saturdays: 9:00 a.m to 4:00 p.m


DEAR BENEFICIARY,(previte@daum.net)

I hope this email meets you in good state of mind. Quite frankly,
after a serious thought, I have decided to personally reach you
directly because I do not have anything against you, but your so
called representatives working with you to realize the remittance of
your payment. However, have you ever wondered why you have been going
this vicious circle over the past years with respect to having your
fund paid to you without any success. It is possible that you were
informed that your payment was brought to me for finalization, neither
were you informed that I am the person frustrating every move to get
your fund remitted to your local bank account in your country, I can
assure you that this yet another deceit on the part of your
representative(s).

Well, like I said earlier to you, I have nothing against you or your
payment but I’m only trying to protect my interest also. I do not want
to mention names here, but am certain you are aware of whom I am
referring to having not received your funds.

I am the Finance/Remittance Department Director, International Wire
Transfer/Telex Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF) your
funds conveyor. Sometime in the past a representative of yours
approached me through a friend of mine who works with one of the
Government Ministries here and requested that I assist him conclude a
money transfer deal having you as the beneficiary and we all agreed.
According to him, he wanted to use this strategy to transfer a huge
amount of US Dollars by presenting your name as Beneficiary Whose fund
has not been paid.

Although we agreed that once I did that, he would give me 20% of the
total fund and he will equally give me your contact information before
I release the fund to your account. When he saw that I have programmed
your fund for onward transfer and your name has been approved among
the list of those to be paid as instead of him letting me have your
contact information to enable me regulate the transfer of funds and
confirm when it arrive in your account to enable me send to you my
private account details for my share of the 20% as was agreed
previously, what he does was to start avoiding me and which
thereafter, resorted to threats, because of that, I immediately
deleted your payment initializing code (PIC) from the list of those to
be paid, and this made it very IMPOSSIBLE for the transfer to be
completed to your account.

However, he your local representative became very angry when he came
to discover I was able to truncate his illicit and deceitful plots and
it could not work out as he wrongly wished. What he did was to start
looking for other means of trying to bribe other junior officers along
with some other financial agencies to see how they could assist him
secure approval to enable them transfer the money to you but all their
efforts was to no avail. Is it not so funny my good friend that you as
a beneficiary is being asked to pay several statutory fees over and
over without your fund being transferred to you as well expected.
Well, your fund is right here with us and am 100% responsible for the
delay and obstructions of completing the transfer of funds to your
account because of the breach of the gentleman agreement between me
and your representative. If you doubt what I have just told you now,
then go ahead and pay any amount he may oblige you pay and thereafter,
he will subject you into another form of tax payment.

(I). You must keep my information to you in this correspondence highly
secret because I don't want to get involve with he, your local
representative again in my life and I will have 10% of the money if
successfully transfers to your local bank account because it is only
two of us in connection to logical remittance of the fund to you.

(ii). You MUST assure me that you will not betray me at last and my
own share will be safe until when I will redirect you to lodged my
part of the fund into an account that i will forward to you.

(iii) As you have seen, it will be useless and mere waste of money if
you continue with your local representative and i can assure you that
with trust and confidence we will conclude the transaction with utmost
secrecy and confidentiality if you wish to adhere to my directives and
instructions. If these conditions are acceptable to you, contact me as
soon as possible to let us finalize all the arrangement and conclude
the remittance of the fund to you immediately without any other delay
attached.

I will give you more important details once I hear from you based on
if you promise to keep away from your local representative and handle
this matter with utmost confidentiality because I want to transfer the
money without the knowledge of any other official of the bank or even
without the knowledge of your local representative.

May the peace of our lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Yours Faithfully.
James Costos.(previte@daum.net)
Finance/Remittance Department Director,
International Monetary Funds, (IMF).

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