419 scam: "Mr.Appiah T.Mensah"<mrappiahmensa@att.net> Greetings From Mr Appiah Mensah.

joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet

Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days

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:

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.
The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "escrow account with no beneficiary" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.

Fraud email example:

From: "Mr.Appiah T.Mensah" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrappiahmensah@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2012 03:44:59 -0700
Subject: Greetings From Mr Appiah Mensah.

Greetings

My name is Mr.Appiah T.Mensah, I am the regional Head, Treasury of Access Bank (Ghana) Plc, I am writing you this proposal in good faith,I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit you and I,it is my duty to send in a financial report to my head office at the end of each business year. On the course of the last year 2011 business report, I discovered that my branch office made excess profit of (US$52.2MILLION)

I have placed these funds in Access Bank escrow account with no beneficiary. As an officer of this bank I cannot be directly connected to this money, so my aim of contacting you is to present you as the beneficiary so that my head office will facilitate the funds into your account and get 40% of the total funds as your commission.

Thanks and God bless you
Mr.Appiah T.Mensah
Head, Treasury of
Access Bank (Ghana) Plc

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam