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.

 

 

Fraud email example:

From: vincentprivate@free.fr (Mr Vincent Soglo)
Reply-To: vincentprivate@free.fr
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:55:22 +0300
Subject: ( INTERNATIONAL TRUST HOUSE BENIN )

( INTERNATIONAL TRUST HOUSE BENIN )

Dearest: Friend,

My Name is Mr.Vincent Soglo, chief credit officer with the one of the leading
Finance House knowns as ( INTERNATIONAL TRUST HOUSE BENIN) here in Cotonou Republic Du Benin. In my department i discovered an abandoned consignment worth over sum of US$20M dollars (Twenty Million US dollars) in file that belongs to one of our foreign customer (MR. ANDREAS SCHRANNER from Munich, Germany) who died along with his entire family in July 2000 in a plane
crash.

Below is a website which i will appreciate you go through to read the
information.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm


Since i got information about his death, I have been expecting his next of kin
to come over to our company and claim his ( consignment ) money because we
cannot release it unless some body applies for it as next of kin or relation to
the deceased as indicated in our banking guidlings and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the ( consignment ) money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this ( consignment ) money to go into the company treasury as unclaimed bill.

The Companie's law and guidline here stipulates that if such ( consignment )
money remained unclaimed after Six years, the money will be transfered into the
Company treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in
this business is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and
an Indigenecannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.

Your percentage will be declare to you as soon as you indicate your interest.I
will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentage indicated.

Therefore, to enable the immediate move of this fund to you arranged,you must
apply first to the bank as relation or next of kin of the deceased indicating.

1.Your full name and address
2.Your telephone and fax number for easy communication.
3.Your company's name and address.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the
application .I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is
hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required
arrangements have been made for the movement of the money.

You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.Trusting to hear from you immediately.

Yours Faithfully,

Mr.Vincent Soglo.

Anti-fraud resources: