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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
- This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
- +447024052503 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
Fraud email example:
From: "Ms Roselyn Payne" <office3008@gmail.com>
Reply-To: federalreservebanklondon@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:51:02 +0200
Subject: ATTENTION BENEFICIARY (ARE YOU TRULY DEAD?)
Address: 108 Canada Square
London Rd,E14 5HQ
Telephone: Tel. +44-702-405-2503
Ref: Payment of $4.5 million approval.
Please Attention to this Notification.
Attention Beneficiary,
We received instruction few days from our correspondence bank federal
reserve bank of london (SKY-BANK INTERNATIONAL) to transfer the sum of
$4.5 million into your account which we are on the process to
open an online banking account on your name and forward to you the
account information so that you can transfer your fund into your
regular account in your country by your self, to avoid any
problem.But we are surprise this morning when we are about to open
your online banking account and received another email from
MS.Diane L. Mcallister whom claim to be your representative with a
letter of dead certificate telling us that you are dead and you left
an instruction to her for the claim of your(deposited fund
$4.5million) here. Here are the below account information she
forwarded to us to transfer your fund into her account. The account
which she forward to us as follow.
Bank of America
St. Petersburg%
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Anti-fraud resources:
