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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: Michael Pascal <call2mrcohen4@gmail.com>
Reply-To: michaelpascal65@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 05:34:35 +0100
Subject: Please read with understanding mind.

Dear Friend,

I hopefully believe that this mail will meet you in good health. My
name is Mr. Michael Pascal the chief of account and audit department,
bank here in Benin.

My reason of contacting you is for my urgent need for a foreigner from
your location, who can sincerely and confidentially assist me to
execute a big opportunity that recently occurred in my bank. A
customer of ours from your country, who lived and worked here for many
years died in a motor accident with the wife and son. This man had
with us, a domiciliary fix deposit account which the term has expired
without any person coming for the claim of the money in the account.

As the procedure of the bank, if an account owner is died and the
account becomes inactive or dormant due to no one servicing it and no
one comes forward to claim the money in the account as a relative or
next of kin, the fund or money in the account will be declared to the
state government as an abandoned fund and the account will be
confiscated. When this happens, a greater percentage of the total fund
in the account goes to the state treasury while the bank takes the
less percentage.

The fund contained the sum of US$5.6 million. Base on my experience as
a banker, if accept to cooperate with me, we can claim this money
without any suspect whatsoever. I have a planned arrangement for this.
My dear, this is an opportunity that occurs once in a person’s life.
This is an opportunity that can turn out lives around and we will make
a better future for our children.

I will give you a full detail on the plans to execute this perfectly
once you reply with an interest to team with me to make this happen.
Once we start to work on this, it will take less than two weeks time
and the money will be transferred to any account you will provide.
Please reply me urgently for more information.

Thanks and best regards,
Michael Pascal.

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