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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: "Jonathan Miller" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <jonmillier@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 14:03:26 -0400
Subject: Business proposal

Dear friend,
It is with utmost urgency that i write to seek your cooperation in financing this business deal. In October 2005 exactly a month after the Parliamentary Elections in Poland Ms. Aleksandra Natalli-Swiat whom was elected into the Sejm in Poland as a Parliamentarian representing the Wroclaw district approached me as a senior banker heading the Fixed Income and Credit Department of my bank indicating her interest to lodge the sum of 14,700,000.00 United States Dollar which according to her then was given to her by her country's President to keep as part of the funds he (The President) was to use in her country's general elections in 2010.
All necessary documentation regarding this deposit was brokered by me and she made the deposit with my bank with utmost secrecy, divulged of any third party's knowledge with an agreement to withdraw the 14,700,000.00 United Stated Dollars and the accrued interest after 4 years which was last October. She called me sometime in December last year that she wanted to renew the agreement as regarding the deposit since she was not ready to withdraw the funds until May this year and we both agreed that when she was ready she should alert me so that I can make all arrangement for the re-signing of the new agreement. This she never did, until unfortunately on the 10th of April this year she died in a plane crash alongside her country's President Lech Kaczynski on their way to a memorial ceremony in Katyn forest to commemorate the memory of some 20,000 Polish officers killed by Soviet secret police during World War Two.
Her Death came to me as a shock when i was watching the news that morning as i saw her name on the list of those that died in the crash. The reasons is that while she was filling the documents for the deposit she never indicated any person as her next of kin since she made the deposit a secret and never envisage death as she was very healthy and lively. And since I was the only one that knew all about the funds deposit I thought of how if i do not make a move on time to recover that funds, it would be reverted to the government's treasury at the end November this year and the funds would eventually end up in one corrupt government officials account, which is a usual occurrence that we had always witnessed as bankers. Hence my decision to contact you to partner with me in this deal to claim this funds, for i still have in my possession all the documents issued to her when the funds was being lodged, since she kept it as a secret and did not want any members of her family o
r friend to stumble into the fund
If you know you are capable of partnering with me in financing this deal and as well receive this funds as her next of kin, then respond to me urgently so that i can brief you adequately on how we can go about claiming this funds, which had now accrued so much interest. Be assured that everything will work out very well since i am the only one with the full knowledge and history of this fund in my bank. Please reply to my email: jonmillier@aol.com only if you are capable of handling this deal.
Yours Faithfully
Jonathan Miller

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