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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 next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: "Mr. Meng Sok" <msok7733@foxmail.com>
Reply-To: msok773@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 02:31:37 +0700
Subject: Greetings,
Greetings,
Greeting to you my name is Mr. Meng Sok. I am a senior banker with one of the major
banks here in Cambodia and I am the chief account officer to Late Mr. Lam Kok who died
in a helicopter crash in France while inspecting one of his new acquisitions.
You can follow the link below to know more about our deceased customer:
www.bbc.com/news/world europe-25476662
I have the opportunity of making you the beneficiary to his deposited funds with our
bank and have all the details and required information to make you the beneficiary to
the funds. I want to present you as the representative and will use my position and
influence to make sure they release this money to you for us to share. Kindly get back
to me for more details.
Best Regards
Mr. Meng Sok
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Anti-fraud resources:
