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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "dear sir/madam" (a standard Nigerian greeting phrase)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
- This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- me.richardsulliven22@yahoo.com.vn (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: RICHARD SULLIVEN <richardsulliven01@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: RICHARD SULLIVEN <richardsulliven18@yahoo.it>
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:59:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: WAITING FOR REPLY
Dear Sir/Madam
Greetings to you and your family,
My name is Richard Sullivan manager of bill and exchange in bank, I have a
business of 5.5 Million Euro to be transfer to your account for investment in
your country if you are ready to assist me get back to me I will give you full
details on how the money will be transfer to you.
You must assure me that everything
will be handled confidentially because we are not going to suffer again in
life. It has been 10 years now that most of the greedy Politicians used our
bank to launder money overseas through the help of their Political advisers.
Most of the funds which they
transferred out of the shores of Africa were gold and oil money that was supposed to have been
used to develop the continent. Their Political advisers always inflated the
amounts before transfer to foreign accounts so I also used the opportunity to
divert part of the funds hence I am aware that there is no official trace of
how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such transfers were being
closed after transfer.
I acted as the Account Officer to
most of the politicians and when I discovered that they were using me to
succeed in their greedy act; I also cleaned some of their banking records from
the Bank files and no one cared to ask me because the money was too much for
them to control.
They laundered over (90 Million
Euro) during the process .As I am sending this message to you, I was able to
divert Five Million Five Hundred Thousand Euro (5.5M) to an escrow account
belonging to no one in the bank.
The bank is anxious now to know
who the beneficiary to the funds is is because they have made a lot of profits
with the funds. It is more than Eight years now and most of the politicians are
no longer using our bank to transfer funds overseas. The (5.5 Million Euro) has
been lying waste but I don't want to retire from the bank without transferring
the funds to a foreign account to enable me share the proceeds with the
receiver.
The money will be shared 60% for
me and 40% for you .There is no one coming to ask you about the funds because I
secured everything. Please quickly reply me.richardsulliven22@yahoo.com.vn
Yours Faithfully,
Mr. Richard Sullivan
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