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: "Mr Mark Johnson" <mak2john@fiberia.com> (may be fake)
Reply-To: mak1johns@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 18:49:02 +0100
Subject: Urgent Help

Greetings.

My name is Mr. Mark Johnson , the Manager, Credit and Foreign Bills
of UK LONDON INTERNATIONAL BANK PLC. Am writing in respect of a foreign
customer of my bank with account number D14-A55-096/GIB/D who perished
in a plane crash (EGYPT-AIR BOEING 676-300) with the whole
passengers aboard.
Since the demise of this our customer. I have personally watched with
keen interest to see the next of kin but all has proved abortive as
no one has come to claim his funds of US Dollar 28.5 m, [twenty-eight
million five hundred thousand united states dollars]which has been
with my branch for a very long time.
On this note, I decided to seek for whom his name shall be used as the
Next of kin as no one has come up to be the next of kin.
And the banking ethics here does not allow such money to stay more than Six
years, because money will be recalled to the bank treasury as unclaimed
after this period.
Inview of this I got your contact through a search on the Internet .
I shall give you 40% of the total sum.
I will not fail to bring to your notice that this business is hitch
free and that you should not entertain any fear as all modalities for fund
transfercan be finalized within five banking days, after you apply to the bank as a relation to the deceased.
When you receive this letter. Kindly send me e-mail to private email
signifying Your decisionincluding your private
telephone/ fax numbers for quick communication.
Respectfully submitted,
MR.Mark Johnson
Manager, Credit and Foreign Bills.


Anti-fraud resources: