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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: Mr. Rodger A. Lawson <rodgerlawson5@gmail.com>
Reply-To: rodgerlawson50@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 18:54:37 +0800 (HKT)
Subject: FUND TRANSFER DEAL.
Greetings,
I found your contact email address listed on an Internet Business Directory and it is my wish to do business with you hence your receipt of this mail.
My Name is Mr. Rodger Lawson; I work as the Head of Fund Manager with Fidelity Investment UK, the World Leading Investment & Fund Management Institution based in UK/Channel Island.
I have an Investor under my portfolio with a closing balance of $42.870m as his first initial deposit. This Investor died three years ago leaving no WILL or AUTHORIZATION for re-transfer of his Investment and its proceeds to the INHERITOR. I have personally carried out an Investigation on the subject matter that took me 12 months to finalize and was made to understand that the Family or Relatives of this Investor knows nothing about his Investment with Fidelity and none have any records of all his deposits and investment with us leaving an avenue for claiming of the said funds with its accrued interest on presentation of a trustworthy person that can stand as the INHERITOR to the deceased.
If you are interested, I can present you as the INHERITOR with proper documentation that will qualify you to have the funds claimed and on doing this, our establishment will not question the release of the funds to you as I will make sure that we comply with the laid down rules and laws of claiming the Investment of a deceased Investor in our Establishment. Our sharing ratio will be 50:50.
Please contact me for more detail breakdown. Looking forward to hear from you shortly.
Sincerely,
Mr. Rodger A. Lawson.
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Anti-fraud resources:
