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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: Dr. David Johnson <davidjohnsond@yahoo.cn>
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2012 16:42:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: good news for you

FROM THE DESK OF DR STEVE BOATENG
CHAIRMAN ECOWAS CONTRACT AWARDING
COMMITTEE ECOWAS FUND HEADQUARTERS
P.M.B.5028 ACCRA-REPUBLIC OF GHANA
EMAIL: davidjohnsond@yahoo.cn

ACCOUNT PROVISION FOR USD45.5MILLION

I am Dr. David Johnson, The chairman, Contract-Awarding Committee of
the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) with its fund
headquarters in Accra Ghana. I got your information in a professional
database when I was searching through Internet for a reliable, honest
and trustworthy person to entrust this business with. I was simply
inspired and motivated to pick your contact from the many names in the
list of the directory. After discussing my view and your profile with
my colleagues, they were very much satisfied and decided to contact
you immediately for this mutual business relationship. We wish to
transfer the sum of USD45,500,000.00 (FORTY FIVE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED
THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS ONLY.) Into your personal or company's
bank account.

This fund was a residue of the over invoiced contract bills awarded by
us intentionally for the supply of hard/soft wares, pharmaceuticals/
medical items, light and heavy duty vehicles, apparels and other
administrative/logistics for the ECOMOG in Sierra-Leone and Liberia
during the peace keeping projects.
This deal was deliberately hatched out and carefully protected with
the cooperation and mandate of the financial director and the
secretary of the organization. We arranged and over invoiced the
contract funds supplied by different companies from different
countries during the crisis. It was our consensus to seek the
assistance of a willing foreigner to provide us with the facilities to
transfer this money out of West Africa. This is borne out of our
belief in the non-stable and porous political nature of this
sub-region.

The original contractors have been duly paid by ECOWAS banker through
the central bank of Ghana and finance ministry. The balance is
suspended in the ECOWAS grand account awaiting claims by any foreign
partner of our choice to receive the fund on our behalf now ECOWAS is
intending to pay all their outstanding balance of their contractors
this year as the organization is winding up its activities since the
aim of returning peace to the countries and the coast has been
achieved. Based on the laws and ethics of employment, we as civil
servants working under this organization, are not allowed to
operate/own a foreign account. This is more reason why we needed your
urgent assistance to provide an account that can sustain this fund for
safe keeping and our future investment with your comprehensive advise,
assistance and partnership in your country. It is however agreed, as
the account owner in this deal to allow you 30% of the entire sum as
compensation, 65% will be held on trust for us while 5% will be used
to defray any incidental charges and cost during the course of the
transaction.

This transaction will be successfully concluded within 14 days if you
accord us your unalloyed and due cooperation. You should provide the
followings for immediate kickoff of this deal if it interests you;
your company's names with complete address, tel. and fax numbers. (If
available) the NAME OF YOUR BANK, ITS ADDRESS WITH TEL.,FAX AND TELEX
NUMBERS, THE ACCOUNT NUMBER THE COMPLETE MAILING ADDRESS OF THE
BENEFICIARY WITH TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS. Upon the receipt of this
information, application for claim will be sent to you to fill and
return back to the organization in pursuit of the claim legally and
then be forwarded to the organization for ratification and subsequent
payment. As with the case of all organized (sensitive) and conspired
deals, we solicit for your unreserved confidentiality and utmost
secret in this business.

We hope to retire peacefully and lead honorable business life
afterwards. There are no risks involved. Kindly expedite action if you
are interested as we are behind schedule to enable us utilize this
golden opportunity pay out this fund immediately which we might stand
to loose, if we fail to provide a safe account for this transfer on
time at the expiration of this year ECOWAS has mapped out for payment
of all their outstanding contractors and the dissolution of our
committee. Please urgency is needed as we do not know the time our
organization will start the payment hence it is necessary to start on
time to forestall any hitch while transferring the fund into your
designated account.
Hoping to hear from you.
Best regards.

Dr. David Johnson

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