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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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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:
- 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 fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "first national bank" (not involved with lotteries)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Solomon" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrsolomon65@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2014 21:35:48 +0800
Subject: top ugent
Hello,
This is to inform you that the Man whose photo is attached here Gavin Isaiah presented to us the online remittance fee of $250/ID card, informing us that you
gave him authorization to claim your benefited funds amounted to $2,500.000 deposited in our Bank BSSIC.
Please try and get back to us immediately for reconfirmation before we instruct him to pay the $250 to our Agent collector and have the fund transferred into
his detailed account as mandated.
Below is the information he submitted to us:
Bank name: First National Bank South Africa
Account Name: Gavin Isaiah
Account number: 7976326579
Routing number: 104000653
Address: Pritchard Streets Johannesburg Gauteng South Africa 2001
For more information call me or reply immediately.
Sincerely,
Solomon
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Anti-fraud resources: