joewein.de LLC fighting spam and scams on the Internet

Try our spam filter! Free trial for 30 days

"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

• About the 419 (Advance Fee) scam
• "Is that email a scam?" - Check it online here!
  
• Frequently asked Questions (419 FAQ)
• Phone numbers used by 419 scammers
  (+225 +229 +234 +27 +31 +32 +34 +44 other)
• Company names mentioned in 419 spam:
  1 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
• Support our efforts to stop scams!
  
• How to report 419 spam to us
• What can you do when you receive 419 spam
  
  
• Spam archive, Daily index
  

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.

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:

• The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
  • "lagos" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
• This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
  

Fraud email example:

From: "john aboh"<williamswest@optusnet.com.au>
Reply-To: <jaboh1931@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:05:27 -0000
Subject: THIS LETTER IS WRITTEN IN ORDER TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE FROM
TODAY.


This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached
along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted
mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details.

Content preview: FIRST BANK OF NIGERIA PLC HEAD OFFICE SAMUEL ASABIA
HOUSE 35 MARINA LAGOS NIGERIA Attn: Beneficiary. NOTIFICATION FOR
RELEASE OF $9.5M [...]

Content analysis details: (10.00 points, 5 required)
UNDISC_RECIPS (1.8 points) Valid-looking To "undisclosed-recipients"
SARE_MONEYTERMS (0.7 points) BODY: Talks about money in some way.
SUBJ_ALL_CAPS (1.1 points) Subject is all capitals
NIGERIAN_BODY (2.9 points) Message body has multiple indications of Nigerian spam
FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK (0.0 points) Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
MIME_HTML_ONLY (0.1 points) Message only has text/html MIME parts
SARE_FRAUD_X3 (1.7 points) Matches 3+ phrases commonly used in fraud spam
SARE_FRAUD_X4 (1.7 points) Matches 4+ phrases commonly used in fraud spam

Anti-fraud resources:

• What can you do when you receive 419 spam