joewein.net   joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days
  jwSpamSpy

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:

Fraud email example:

From: "Thitima" <mthiti112@live.com>
Reply-To: mthit221@live.com
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 20:17:32 -0000
Subject: Greetings to you




Greetings to you,


I believe you are a highly placed person considering the fact that I got
your email from a human resource database of your country. I request you
treat what I am about telling you with seriousness and confidentiality.
Well, I am Miss. Thitima from Thailand, a banker. I was the account
officer to a late customer who was an exporter of rice from Thailand. On
the 21st of July 2010, he died in his sleep as a result of heart related
illness. Before his death, I helped him deposit the sum of 12.3 million US
Dollars as fixed deposit with our bank. The said deposit has long matured
and no one has not shown up for the claim. All efforts made to reach any
of his relatives have proved unsuccessful and the money deposited will
soon be lost to the government if the claim is not made immediately.

All I require now is your honest cooperation to enable me present you as
the beneficiary of his deposit in order to claim the money with our bank.
It does not matter if you knew him or not or whethera he is related to you
or not, you can successfully make the claim as long as you are not here in
Thailand. Everything will be made easy by me once you are ready to
co-operate with me. The fund shall be shared into two equal parts between
the both of us when the claim is made. I guarantee that this will be done
under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of
the law both here and in your country. If you can help, write back for me
to give you more details.

Thank you.
Miss. Thitima Suksri

Anti-fraud resources: