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"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: Abdul Karim <abdu_karim909@hotmail.fr>
Reply-To: abdulkarim089@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:14:52 +0800 (SGT)
Subject: CONFIDENTIAL IS THE CASE. VERY URGENT ATTENTION.




From Mr. Abdul Karim.
AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING MANAGER,
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK(ADB)
50-54 RUE DE THOMPSON,
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO,
WEST AFRICA

CONFIDENTIAL IS THE CASE. VERY URGENT ATTENTION.

I am the manager of auditing and accounting department African Development Bank (A.D.B). I got your address in Burkina Faso chamber of commerce through yahoo details. In my department i discovered an abandoned sum of $20.5m (Twenty million five hundred thousand dollars). In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in a concord plane crash in the year 2004 in Paris that almost took the whole life of the passengers on board.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and i don't want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.


The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after seven years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury account as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkina be cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.

We agree that 40% of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, and 60% would be for me. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location

where the money will be remitted upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the letter of demand for you to apply for the claim immediately.

I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer. You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.

Trusting to hear from you immediately

Yours faithfully
Mr. Abdul Karim
Auditing and accounting manager A.D.B bank

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