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. Nodusi Itami" <mrnodusiitami@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: mritaminodusi@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:17:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Compliment of the day My Good Friend:





Compliment of the day My Good Friend,
 
I am Mr. Nodusi Itami of the Ecobank in Burkina Faso - West Africa. Although you might be apprehensive about my email as we have not met before. I am in the auditing department with Ecobank Burkina Faso; during my recent auditing I discovered some amount of money valued (USD$10.5)Ten million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollar belong to a late customer, Who Died Along With His Family In Kenya Plane Crash 2003.You Can Confirm The Geniuses Of The Deceased death.
 
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/07/20/kenya.crash/index.html  I am writing to seek your assistance in working with me, so that I can present you to my bank, as the rightful beneficiary/next of kin to our late customer.
 
We have tried to contact other legitimate relative to claim this funds for several years now, but to no avail, as we cannot release it unless somebody applied for its next of Kin or Relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking procedure. Unfortunately nobody has come forward to claim the money.
 
I want you to purportedly present your good self as the next of Kin or relation of the deceased so that we can prepare documentations and release the funds (US$10.5 Million) into your account for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and again we do not want the funds to go into the Governments account as "Unclaimed Bill".
 
The banking law and procedures herein stipulates that any account abandoned or dormant for a period of some years is subjected to be closed and all money contained therein will be forfeited to the Government Treasury Account.
 
Now it is being speculated that the above sum will be transferred into Government Treasury Account as unclaimed funds, if nobody apply as the Next of Kin. The reason for you to present your good self as the next of kin in occasioned by the fact that the deceased customer was a foreigner.
 
This however is not mandatory nor will I in any manner compel you to honour against your will. I would like you to read on and consider the value I offer. Once the funds have been transferred to your nominated bank account we shall then share in the ratio of 50% for me, 50% for you. I want to give you 100% assurance that this transaction is also risk free one, all I need from you is your maximum support and co-operation for a smooth and hitch free transfer of funds into your account.
 
I advice please treat this business with utmost confidentiality. If interested please Kindly respond immdiately for onward guideline & proceeding.
 
Sincerely,
Mr. Nodusi Itami



Anti-fraud resources: