joewein.net   joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days
  jwSpamSpy

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:

Fraud email example:

From: "Dr George Lawrence Mensa"<seo@riomega.pl>
Reply-To: drmensa-office101@usa.com
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 17:40:56 +0200
Subject: Change Of Ownership Alert


Attn; I'm Dr. Lawrence George Mensa, the Chief Executive Officer of the Min=
ister of Finance. We wish to urgently confirm from you if actually you know=
one Mrs. Jeanne White who claims to be your business associate/partner. Ki=
ndly reconfirm this application put in by Mrs. Jeanne White - she submitted=
the under listed bank account information supposedly sent by you to receiv=
e the funds on your behalf. The bank information she applied with are state=
d thus: Account Name: Mrs. Jeanne White Bank name: Citi Bank NA Bank addres=
s: #1230 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA Account Number: 013439887=
655 Routing Number: 2771722 Swift Code: CITIUS30 The said Mrs. Jeanne White=
is claiming to this office that you are dead and have Instructed that all =
relevant documentation/Information regarding your Payment/Transfer, be chan=
ged to her as the beneficiary of the payment short-listed among the foreign=
beneficiaries entitled to receive their payment. For your Information, thi=
s Government has approved the total amount of EIGHT MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED T=
HOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS ONLY, in your favor, prior to the Federal Gov=
ernment instructions/mandate to offset all outstanding payments to the vari=
ous legal foreign beneficiaries around the world and your payment file was =
affected. We need to confirm from you if it's really true that you are dead=
as made mention by your Associate. You should note that, if we do not hear=
from you, we automatically assume that you are actually dead and the infor=
mation passed to us by Mrs. Jeanne White is correct. Hence, you are hereby =
requested to reply this Email immediately for confirmation, before we proce=
ed with this payment and for us to know the true position of things with yo=
u so that we won't make any mistakes/errors in remitting your out-standing =
payment to a wrong person/account. Lastly, you are advice to reply back thi=
s email and reconfirm the details of this message if truly you're alive. Fu=
ll name................................ Direct telephone number......... Ad=
dress.................................... Age..............................=
............. Occupation............................... Country............=
......................... Bank name................................ Bank ad=
dress................................. Bank account........................=
......... Account type................................. Your quick response=
will help us a lot. Yours, Sincerely, Dr Lawrence Mensa.

Anti-fraud resources: