419 scam: "Barrister Khun Chai"<info@chambers.com> From The Desk Of Barrister Khun Chai

joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet

Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days

Home

About Us

Spam

419/Nigeria

Fraud

Contact

"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 friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "from the desk of" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "necessary legal documents" (this will cost you money - be careful with upfront payments to anyone you only know through email, especially if they promise you a lot of money. NEVER send money by Western Union or MoneyGram to people you do not know personally - NO EXCEPTIONS! Instant wire transfer services are not meant to be used with strangers because they offer no protection against fraud. That is precisely why the criminals want you send money that way. )
- "million united state dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "united state dollar" (this email uses bad English)
- "barrister" (Barristers (lawyers) mentioned in 419 scams are always fake.)
- "chambers" (Barristers (lawyers) mentioned in 419 scams are always fake.)
This email message is a next of kin scam.
Barristers (lawyers) mentioned in 419 scams are always fake.
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.
- barristerkhunchai@yahoo.co.th (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Fraud email example:

From: "Barrister Khun Chai" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <barristerkhunchai@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 19:52:15 +0700
Subject: From The Desk Of Barrister Khun Chai

>From The Desk Of Barrister Khun Chai
Khun Chai And Associate Chambers,
25 Surang Road, Bangkok Thailand.
Email: barristerkhunchai@yahoo.co.th

Dear Friend,,

Please kindly accept my apology for sending unsolicited mail to you, I believe you are a highly respected personality considering the fact that I sourced your profile from a human resource profile database of your country. Though, I do not know to what extent you are familiar with events. Firstly, i offer my friendship, and greetings, and i hope this mail meets you in good time. However strange or surprising this contact might seem to you as we have not met before either physically or through correspondence, I humbly ask that you take due consideration of its importance and the immense benefit it will be to you.

For the purpose of introduction, I am Barrister Khun Chai, a Solicitor. I am the Personal Attorney to Late MR STEVEN HARRIS a nationality of your country who is a foreign investor in Thailand, who died with his family ( wife and 3 children ) in a car accident along Ratchada Express road in Bangkok on the 22nd of August 2006.

Since then, i have made several enquiries to locate any of my late client family and this has proved unsuccessful. Now due to an emergency needed this time, i decided to trace over the internet to see if i could locate any of the deceased extended relatives, but to no avail. Hence i contacted you. I contacted you to assist in repartrating the money left behind by my client with a Bank here before his death, sum of US$ 25,000,000.00 (Twenty Five Million United State Dollars).

This Bank issued me a notice to present the next of kin/relatives of the deceased to claim his left fund or else the fund will be declare unserviceable. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives of the deceased, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin/relatives to claim the fund, so that the Bank can release the fund to you as your inheritance.

Upon receipt of the fund in your account, I will come over to your country to meet with you for the disbursement of the fund. Then you and i will share the money in this order: 50% for me, and 40% for you, while the remaining 10% will be set aside for any expenses which may eventually comes up during the claim. I have all the necessary legal documents that can back our claim we will make with the Bank.

All I require is your honesty and co-operation to enable us seeing this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.

Your co-operation is urgently needed as a next of kin for us to claim this fund and be happy together.

Kindly Feel free and get back to me immediately on this email: barristerkhunchai@yahoo.co.th for more details.

Best Regards
Barrister Khun Chai ( Esq )

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam