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: John Atta <j.atta@sify.com>
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 02:07:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: PLEASE READ CONFIDENCAILLY




Hello Dear,

My name is Mr.John Atta, I am the branch manager of the International Commercial Bank Kumasi branch Ghana. I am 47years of age and married with 3 lovely kids and a wife, i do not know how you will feel about what am about to tell but i pray you take it in good faith. I only hope that we can assist each other, but if you don't want this business offer kindly forget it and I will not contact you again.

I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit both of us, as the regional manager of the International Commercial Bank; it is my duty to send in a financial report to my head office in the capital city (Accra-Ghana) at the end of each year. On the course of the last year 2009 end of year report, I discovered that my branch made [$5.500.000.00] which my head office is not aware of and will never be aware of because of where i placed the fund. I have since place this fund on what we call a SUSPENSE ACCOUNT without any beneficiary.

As an official of the bank I can not be directly connected to this fund, so this informed me to contact you for us to work together, so that you can assist and receive this fund into your bank account for us to share. Mean While you will have 40% of the total fund, Note there are practically no risk involved, it will be a bank to bank transfer, all I need from you is to claim this fund as the original depositor who made the deposit with our branch so that my Head office can order the transfer to your designated bank account.

If you accept this offer to work with me, I will appreciate it very much as soon as I receive your response I will give you details on how we can achieve it successfully.
 
Best Regards.
Mr. John Atta.



Anti-fraud resources: