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: John Scott <john.scott44@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: <scottjohn101@yahoo.pt>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 09:29:03 +0000
Subject: Your Urgent Response is needed, please contact me for more details.



ATTENTION: MY DEAR!!



CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS I NEED YOUR CO-OPERATION IN THIS TRANSACTION.


Hello
My Name is Mr. John Scott William, I work with a private Bank here in
London UK. I want to introduce and negotiate with you a business
opportunity that exist in my office that will be of great benefit us
all. Thus I wish to transfer the sum of £75, Million Pounds from a
dormant Bank account here. Thus I would like to explain more to you on
how this large amount of fund originates.

I am a consulting
auditor attached with a private Bank, I carry out various banking
Services with the bank. I am contacting you independently concerning the
outcome of our internal audit investigation which no other one has been
informed of this communication and I have decided to intimate you with
certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you.

I am
contacting you concerning a customer of the bank who had an investment
placed under the banks management 13 years ago. On May 22/1999. He is
an American accountant/consultant on Oil matters of Saudi Arabia, Late
Eng Micheal David Woodson 65 years old then, he made an investment
deposit valued at £52.2 Million Pounds in this bank, which he wished to
have us turn over on his behalf.

I was the officer assigned to
his case; I made numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the
de-facto chief operations officer and a consulting investment auditor
of the Private Banking Services Department, especially given the
volume of funds he wished to put into our bank. We met on numerous
occasions prior to any investments being placed. I encouraged him to
consider various growth funds with prime ratings.

The favoured
route in my advice to customers is to start by assessing data on 600
traditional stocks and bonds managers and alternative investments.
Based on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and
made attractive margins for our first year of operation, the accrued
profit and interest stood at this point at over £65.5 Million, this
margin was not the full potential of the fund but he desired low risk
guaranteed returns on investments.

In August 2001, he asked that
the money be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment
requiring cash payments in Europe. He directed that I liquidate the
funds and had it deposited with HANDELSBANKEN, a top Swedish bank. I
informed him that our bank would have to make special arrangements to
have this done and in order not to circumvent due process, the bank
would have to make a 9.5% deduction from the funds to cater for banking
and statutory charges. He complained about the charges but later came
around when I explained to him the complexities of the task he was
asking of us.

I contacted my affiliate in Sweden, however, the
exercise was not carried out due to the complex nature of the task and
having been instructed again to stop further proceeding, in line with
his instructions the transfer was stopped.He told me he would use the
money thereafter upon his return from America later that week. This was
the last communication we had, this transpired around Jun 5, 2003,
Four days later, information started to trickle in, that he died in a
plane crash.

On hearing about this information, the bank
immediately launched an investigation into possible surviving next of
kin to alert about the situation and also to come forward to claim his
deposit. In his bio-data form, he listed no next of kin. In the field
of private banking, opening an account means no one will know of its
existence, accounts are rarely held under a name; depositors use
numbers and codes to make the accounts anonymous.

As things
stands now, there is £75, Million Pounds as value for his investment.
The bank has no single idea of what's the history or nature of the
deposit. They are simply awaiting instructions to release the deposit
to any party that comes forward. This is the situation. This bank has
spent great amounts of money trying to track this man's family; they
have investigated for 10 Months now and have found no known relative.
The investigation has already come to an end.

I am prepared to
place you in a position and instruct the bank to release the deposit to
you as the closest surviving relation. Upon receipt of the deposit, I
am prepared to share the money with you and no more. That is, we share
the proceeds 70% for me and 30% for you. We can fine-tune this based on
our interactions and with my position/affiliate in the bank, we can
get things done in a smooth way. There is a reward for this project and
it is a task well worth undertaking. I will like to invest 50% of my
shear in your Country with your help/idea.

I have evaluated the
risks and the only risk I have here is from you refusing to work with
me and alerting the bank. I send you this mail not without a measure of
fear as to what the consequences might be, but I know within me that
nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never
come easy or on a platter of gold. This is the one truth I have learned
from my private banking clients. Do not betray my confidence.

So
you should urgently get back to me to discuss this further, if you know
you will be capable of handling this risk free transaction. Send me
your personal telephone numbers for easy communications.

Please email me back on this mail address: (johnscottw2014@yahoo.co.uk)

I wait to hear from you ASAP.

Regards,

Mr. John Scott William.

Anti-fraud resources: