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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: Sonia Tiendrebeogo <soniatiendrebeogo@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 19:06:18 +0100 (BST)
Subject: please reply me urgently today.


Good morning to you and your family.

My name is Mrs Sonia Tiendrebeogo, the director of account and audit with the bank, ECOBANK (www.ecobank.com) Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in West Africa.

I am contacting you to seek your honesty and sincere cooperation in confidential manner to transfer the sum of €4 400.000.00 (Four million four hundred thousand euro) to your company's bank account or even a new bank account.

This money belongs to one of our bank client, a Libyan oil exporter who was working with the former Libyan government,  I learn t that he was killed by the revolutionary forces since October 2011. Our bank is planning to transfer his entire fund into the government public treasury as unclaimed fund if no body comes to claim the money from our bank after one year without account activities.

I will endorse your name in the deceased file here in my department and guide you on how to apply to our bank through the bank official email and indicate to the bank that you are the business representative partner of the deceased client on a joint account business before he died.

I will personally assist here in the bank to make sure that the bank to approve your claim and the fund will be transferred to you as the legal beneficiary in accordance to our banking inheritance claim regulation.

I will share 35% for you and 65% for me, we need to act fast to complete this transaction within seven days before our next account audit to be held next month.
I
 want to work with you on the basis of trust for the benefit of our both families. I am a widow left with two children one boy and one girl schooling in the university, i hope that you will not disappoint me after the fund is transferred to your bank account in your country.

Please I want you to send me your private phone number so that I can call you to discuss more details on how we can proceed on this project.

Waiting for your urgent response today.
Yours sincerely

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