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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.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: " Tadesse Berhanu" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <fhcng02@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2023 22:52:12 -1200
Subject: IMF Project Funding
My name is Tadesse Berhanu and I am a personal assistant of Mr. Bo Li the current Managing Director of the IMF (The International Monetary Fund) here in Washington DC.
The reason for my email to you today is to let you know that, unknown to the general public The IMF receives close to a total of US$10 billion each year in donations from wealthy philanthropists around the world. Some of the donations are even given anonymously. I am contacting you today to let you know
that I am in a position to earmark some of these funds for disbursement which can fall under the category of either loans or humanitarian purposes.
I wish to use my position here at the IMF to retain a portion of these funds for myself and that is why I have written to you today. Here is my proposal:
If you have a business that you think would qualify for either an interest free loan or humanitarian assistance please get in touch with me upon receiving this email. I would guide you with the exact forms to fill out and procedures for you to receive funds anywhere from $10 million to $20 million. You would in
effects have an ?nside man?telling you exactly how to get funds from The IMF in a fully legitimate way. I would ask that once you receive funding that you kick back 10% of the funds to me, if it is a loan, and 30% of the funds if it is for humanitarian purposes.
Please let me know if you are interested and I will call you for a discussion. It is against protocol to offer anyone this type of assistance, so I have written to you from my private email to start.
If I do not hear back from you in the next 5 days I will assume you are not interested and I will continue my search for someone who is.
Hoping to hear from you.
Tadesse Berhanu
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Anti-fraud resources:
