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: "Common Wealth Lottery" <info@info.com>
Reply-To: <promocommon09@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 1 May 2011 16:50:02 +0800
Subject: 34322

Your e-mail has won $2,500,000.00 in the recent Common Wealth promo,
please reply immediately to collect your winnings. Please Send Your Info,
Name, Address ,occupation, and Phone Number to:
promocommon09@gmail.com,You will be given more details by our information
centre when you send them your reply, Regards Paul Blair

Anti-fraud resources: