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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 phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "ecowas " (the name of a person or institution often appearing in 419 scams)
- "abuja" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: "Dr.Fred Iwu" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <drfrediwu@freemail.hu>
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 07:58:20 -0700
Subject: HERE IS YOUR PAYMENT INFORMATION
Attn:
This letter is coming to you from the Ecowas union of government headquarter in Abuja federal capital, first of all we are deeply sorry for the delay of your inheritance payment.
Today after a meeting held by top leaders in Africa which lasted 3hours regard all the unclaimed payment by foreign beneficiaries and those who lost their money in the hand of scammers, which your file was found among those who did not receive their inheritance fund. according to our lay-down procedure all modalities has been made for the onward remittance of $2.5milion usd to your name and I will advise you to reconfirm the following information where this said amount will be either transfer to you or deliver to you!
Your full name………..
Home/office address……
Sex/age……….
country/city……….
Occupation………..
Mobile phone………….
A copy of your ID
Finally as soon as I hear from you, your payment will be in perfection immediately and once again we are very sorry for the delay of your payment till now and promise to make it up to you as soon as possible within five working days!
Thanks
Regard Dr. Fred Iwu
Director of payment and special adviser to the president in financial matter.
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Anti-fraud resources:
