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: "Serena G." (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ricksesq@ovi.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 17:32:32 +0200
Subject: Reconfirm the following to me.

Good day,

I am Serena Gleen, a personal attorney/sole executor to my late client who died in a car accident with his wife and only two children in London United Kingdom on the 24th of December 2008 and Left behind a large deposit of money in a bank here in Europe (US$22M).

The bank contacted me, as his attorney to provide his Next of Kin to my late client and I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased Please get back to me for further details to enable us discusses the sharing ratio of the funds.

To facilitate the process of this transaction, kindly reconfirm the following to me through my personal email address (serenagleenesq@yahoo.co.uk)

Your full name
Telephone and fax numbers, Address,
Age,
Marital status,
Occupation

Expecting to hear from you soon.

Best regards
Serena Gleen (Ms)

Anti-fraud resources: