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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: My name is Isoka Dieudonn <paolox71@alice.it>
Reply-To: dieudon_nisoka@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 15:57:38 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Goodday
My name is Isoka Dieudonn 17 years and my younger sister Sarah 15 we are from
Ivory Coast .
Our late Mother Helene Dieudonn was a Cocoa and Coffee farmer and she died in
2010
during civil war in our country and ever since, life has been really difficult
for us.
Our mother willed her bank deposit to us and she advice us to seek a foreign
aid for
investment of the deposit abroad should in case she is no more. We have told
the bank to grant
us access to the deposit and the bank asked us to provide a foreign guardian
who will assist us
invest and take charge of the money for us according to the deposit agreement
the bank had with our mother.
That is why we contact you to seek your kind assistance to represent as our
guardian in order
for the bank to release the deposit $3.9 million to you on my behalf. We would
be really
appreciative the best we can if you can, reach out to help us so that we can
come to live in your
country and continue our education. Send us your name, address and telephone
number if you
are willing to help us so the bank can transfer the deposit to you on our
behalf.
We wait your soonest reply.
Sincerely,
Isoka and Sarah
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Anti-fraud resources:
