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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. Mike Abass" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mikeabass74@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 07:42:11 -0800
Subject: Joint Partnership

--
Attn:President/Ceo

Dear Sir/ Madam

It is my warmest pleasure writing you this business letter with a view
that you will accept my request and give me a positive response hence
time is essence. I am Dr.Mike Abass, Chairman of the contract award
and monitoring committee with the federal ministry of works and
housing ,Abuja Nigeria. By the virtue of our position and the power
bestowed on us by the government, we carefully and deliberately over
invoiced the value of some contracts that we awarded to some foreign
contractors to the tune of Twenty two million, five hundred thousand
united state dollars (USD$ 22,500.000.00).

Now the contracts have been fully executed and commissioned and
payments are about to be made to all the contractors who have
successfully executed their contracts, the over invoiced sum of $22.5
Million is what we want to transfer out of our country for our own
benefit. Unfortunately as civil servants we are not permitted by law
to operate offshore bank accounts and this has constituted a major
hindrance to our plan in transferring this fund out of our country and
to this end my colleagues have mandated me to look for an honest and
trustworthy foreign partner who will assist us to provide an offshore
bank account to receive the fund on our behalf for our mutual benefit
hence we are seeking your assistance.

My colleagues and I have agreed that the owner of the account will be
compensated with (35%) of the total sum for providing the account
while we will share the balance (60%) and 5% set aside to cover any
expenses incured during the course of the project. Note that we have
done our homework very well in our country, this transaction is safe
and guaranteed 100% risk free. Please ensure to treat this matter in
strict privacy and absolute confidentiality as we have to protect our
job as Civil Servants.

I shall await your urgent response

Regards,

Dr.Mike Abass

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