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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: williams mataruse <willi.mata1@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 13:07:59 +0100
Subject: HELLO

Dear ,

First of all, let me fully introduce myself. I am Mr. Williams Mataruse, I
am working at one of the leading banks in Ivory Coast, West of Africa; l am
the director of the Accounts Department.

I am writing to ask for your cooperation to enable both of us take advantage
of a good opportunity that is at my disposal at the bank for investment
purpose. I found your contact details on the internet while l was doing a
search, so l decided to contact you to see your cooperation.

Please before going any further, l want you to know that this proposal is
serious and its not a joke. So l advise you erase any doubt you might have
about my proposal, my intention is genuine. I want you to
give me your total support and l promise you will not regret doing so.

Here is the details of my proposal:
There is this anonymous fund totalling $21.5 Million-USD that has been floating
in a suspense-account for some years now. The money was part of huge funds
the government made available to the bank for onward payment of arms and
ammunition ordered by the government at the outbreak of the civil war that
is now over.

The former bank director who was an ally of the country's President, was
the one handling the purchase of arms for the President. In doing so, he
syphons some of the money for his own personal aggrandisement. But this
very amount remained in the suspense account because the former director
died before he could transfer the money to his foreign bank account.

In view of this, l have decided to look for a foreign partner that can provide
a foreign bank account for me to transfer the money to for investment
purpose. This is the reason why l have contacted you; I want you to be my
partner in this deal so that l can transfer the money to you for us to go
into investment partnership. You will get 30% of the money for your
cooperation; I will also take 30%, the balance 40% will be set aside for a
joint investment that will be owned by both of us.

Please note that this is not one of those internet mails that tend to seek
for people's bank accounts in order to steal money from it. For the
purpose of this deal, you can open a new bank account with little
or no money in it. All l need in order to execute this deal, is a foreign
bank account.

It will please you to know that there is no risk involved in this deal, as
soon as the transfer is effected to your nominated bank account and you
confirm to me that your account has been credited, l shall at once delete
every information concerning the transfer from the bank computer system, so
as to erase traces of the wire transfer. Then l shall travel to meet with
you in your country for the sharing of the money as agreed.

You might be finding it difficult to come to terms with my proposal, but l
tell you this today; If you where in this part of the world where l happen
to come from, you will not let this opportunity pass you by. In this part
of the world, there is no welfare or any other form of government support
for the citizens. Here in Ivory Coast, over 45% of the population live
below poverty level, no good pension package.

Imagine after putting in over 30 years of your active life working for the
government, you have no house of your own to retire to as a pensioner.
What l am about to do is not only going to better my life now and after
retirement, but also to guarantee better future for my child and relatives.

If you finally decide to cooperate with me in this deal, here is how l intend
to professional execute the deal:

The 21.5 Million-USD is currently in a suspense account among other funds;
wire transfers are never effected from suspense accounts. Suspense accounts
only holds funds for which decision on what to do with the money has not
been reached by the bank. To enable me transfer the money, the money has
to be deposited in a current account; and thereafter, the account owner
will have to give wire instructions for the funds to be transferred.

Now you might be wondering who is going to provide the current account into
which the funds would be deposited before transfer can be effected. For my
safety and dignity, this deal requires 100% secrecy
and confidentiality, l can not seek such service from anybody locally here
in this country. There is this current account that have been dormant for
about 4 years now, the account owner has long since depleted the account,
leaving it with the opening balance. The owner of this account have stopped
operating the account; this is the account l am going to use.

Being the head of the accounts department, l can easily change account
information
in our customer data base. So to secure a current account for this purpose,
l will use the said dormant account. All l have to
do, is to delete all the personal information of the account owner and replace
them with your personal details; thereby temporally making the account
yours. When l have successfully replaced the account
information with your details, l will then credit the account with the 21.5
Million-USD.

The next step marks the conclusion of the deal; in this final stage, l will
send you a specimen of an application requesting wire transfer and account
closure. Your reason for requesting account closure is
because of the unending political crises in the country. Usually, as an
account owner, you must be physically present at the bank to complete this
process which involves the signing of all the documents
pertaining to account closure and wire transfer instructions. But asking
you to come down to this country will not be a good idea because there is a
photograph on every account.

Here in our bank, account owner's photographs are password protected. The
password is of two combinations; the first half of the password is entered
by the Head of Accounts Department (this is me); while the other half of
the password is entered by the account owner. So to delete an account
photograph, the account owner and I must be present to enter the password.
For this reason, asking you to come down here will jeopardise our success
in concluding this transaction since l do not know the other half of the
password. But for the account owner signature, this l can change.

The only way you can do the signing of the documen without encountering any
problem, is using the services of a lawyer here in vory Coast. The lawyer
will have to make the submission on your behalf and sign all the necessary
papers pertaining to account closure and wire instruction. To enable the
lawyer do this on your behalf, you will have to send the lawyer a written
special power of attorney that will give him legal right to act on your
behalf.

When we get to this stage, l shall send you a specimen of the Power of Attorney
so you can transcribe it and send to the lawyer. You don't have to worry
about this, l shall guard you through the process. When l send you
specimen of the application, all you need to do is to transcribe the
application on official paper, have it duly signed and send it to the
lawyer that will make the submission. When the lawyer contacts the bank
submitting your request, the accounts department will be referred to for
validation.

As you already know, the accounts department is my department, so l will
handle the validation process. On giving my approval, your lawyer will be
invited to complete the process of funds transfer and thereafter closure of
the account. When all this is done, the remittance department will then
effect the wire transfer to your nominated bank account as stated in your
application.

When the money is finally transferred to you and you inform me of the presence
of the money in your bank account, l will then delete every traces of the
transaction from our bank system. When l have finally erased all traces, l
will then put in application for retirement and thereafter travel to meet
with you for onward sharing of the money as agreed.

To enable me carry out the first phase of this deal, which is replacing the
account information of the dormant account with your ersonal details, you
will have to send me the following information:
Full name:
Contact address:
City:
State:
Occupation:
Tel #:
Fax # (if any):

This correspondence contains full details of the execution of the deal, and
if you follow my instructions correctly, the transfer will be effected to
your nominated bank account within 7 banking days from the day the lawyer
submits the application on your behalf. If you have any question in
respect of the execution of this deal, please do not hesitate to ask.

Again, l know that in your country, the banks will ask you for the source
of the money. I also took that into account, and for this reason, l will
provide documents to show that the money is for investment from a would-be
foreign investor who has decided to go into partnership with you in your
country.

Thank you once again for your readiness to execute this deal with me; and l
promise that you will not regret doing business with me. The only thing
you will have to promise me, is that you will not mention
this deal to a third party. Because you telling somebody else about this
deal, can jeopardise our success in executing this deal. So please keep
this deal to yourself until the money have been transferred to you.

When you finish reading this message, please respond in earliest:

Best regards,
Mr. Williams Mataruse

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