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: Kelvin Smith <kelvinsmith121220@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2023 12:15:40 -0700
Subject: Dear friend

Dear friend

I am Barr Kelvin Smith, Legal Consultant and Superior Court
Representative based in Bolton, MA, USA. I am writing to you regarding
my late client, who is a citizen of your country, he was killed in a
car accident with his wife and two children on the West Stockbridge
Highway here in the US.

My client, his wife and two children were killed in a car accident on
September 26, 2017, on the West Stockbridge Expressway here in the US
and since then I have made several inquiries to locate any of my
client extended family members but all efforts were in vain, so I
decided to track his last name through the Internet to locate any
member of his Family.

I have contacted you to help me claim and transfer the money left
behind by my late Client before the bank seizes it or declares it
unusable. The bank has already issued me a notice to provide next of
kin or seize the account as an unclaimed bill.

I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased
so that the proceeds of this account valued at (US$18.5M) can be paid
to you and then you and I can share the money 50% to me and 50% goes
for you.

All I need is your honest cooperation to enable us to carry out this
Agreement. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate
agreement that will protect you from any breach of the law, but you
must also agree not to disclose or pass any information related to
this business to anyone for security reasons and to avoid eyebrows. As
soon as I hear from you, I will give you more details on how this
business deal can be achieved successfully.

Sincerely,
Kelvin Smith

Anti-fraud resources: