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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: Joseph Konan <kioujerry@gmail.com>
Reply-To: josephknn49@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2023 15:52:37 +0000
Subject: Hello My Dear,,

Hello My Dear,,
My name is Mr. Joseph Konan; I am a Bank Manager here in Cote
d’Ivoire. I contacted you for a reason; one of my late customers has
the same name as yours. He died 8 years ago and left €10.7 million
euro in his account. Since then, no relatives have come to claim his
money... I think we can work things out...

Unfortunately, my client died with his family in a car crash during
the summer holiday of 2014 in France. His account mandate does not
have any contact with any of his relatives as next of kin. I have made
several inquiries to your embassy to locate any of his relatives
without any success so I decided to track any of his relatives through
the last name over Face book... I have been mandated by my bank
management to provide the next of kin to his account. If I don't get
any of his relatives in 29 days, the account balance of €10.7 million
euro will be returned to the government treasury.

I cannot find any of his relatives. I now seek your consent to present
you as the next of kin to the late account holder. You and I will
share the money 50/50 after the money is transferred to you. I think
this is a fair decision instead of the Cote d’ivoire government taking
the money. I was his personal accountant before he died; I have all
the vital information for us to claim the money without any problem. I
only worry about your ability to keep this transaction secret to
protect my job. The transaction is 100% risk free as I have studied
and investigated the transaction properly as a professional banker and
discovered that it's risk free before making contact with you.

If you are interested write to me and I will tell you what we need to
do to claim the money within 1 week

Waiting for your Urgent response

Thanks
Mr. Joseph Konan

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