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: "MISS.QUEEN EVAN" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <qeenevan1@yahoo.com.hk>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:24:20 +0800
Subject: GOOD DAY MY FRIEND

Dear Respectful,
Good day,
I know that this email will come to you as a surprise because you don,t know me and i don,t know you too.
My name is Queen Evan,i am 20 years old and an ophan.My late father died in auto crash in Decembar 2005.My late father was kill in a suspected road accident but the police reported that my late father was drunk and full of alcohol before his death.For further information on the death of my father,you can visit this website: http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/12/22/drunklatvian.shtml
However,my late father was a successful business man who lived in Hongkong before coming back to my country, Latvia.Before the death of my father,he told me that he deposited the sum of US$5.500,000:00{five Million,five hundred thousand US Dollars only} with the ICBC Bank of China{ICBC}in the year 1999.I have contacted the ICBC Bank and they told me that i am free to come and claim the money as the only Daugther of my late father.
Now,i am presently living with my unlce who is taking care of my school and my uncle is very wicked to me.He has seized all my late father,s properties and sold them away without showing any consign to me.Now,i don,t want him to know about the US$5.500,000:00 with the ICBC Bank that is why i am contacting you to give me and urgently assist so that i can instruct the ICBC Bank to transfer the money to your account to enable me come to meet you in your country.
My main reason of contacting you is because i don,t want my uncle to know about the money because he may claim it and seize the money and i will not get anything.
I am assuring you that this money belong to my late father and it is safe,risk free and legal.
Let me know if your ready to help me on this so that i can give you the detail information of the bank{ICBC},and we reach and agreement on what will be your share.
I am waiting for your reply.
Best regards,
Miss.Queen Evan.

Anti-fraud resources: