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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:
- "contract award committee" (the name of a person or institution often appearing in 419 scams)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Dr. Patrick Brown" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <patrickbrown101@rediffmail.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2015 02:31:09 -0000
Subject: I NEED YOUR REPLY
Hello Dear,
I am Dr. Patrick Brown, Chairman, Contract Award Committee of the West African Health Support Organization. (WAHSO). My colleagues and I awarded contracts to flush out menace of an outbreak of cerebral meningitis for 3 yrs in member states of our organization.
The contract was a multi-million dollar contracts awarded to many expatriate companies around the world for supply of drugs and equipment used. In 3 yrs that the contracts lasted we are able to inflate the cost of the contracts to the tune of 78.2 million.The outbreak has been controlled and flushed out since 2011 and all payments made to the contractors remaining the inflated balance. We need you to partner with us and claim this sum for our benefits. If you are interested we can discuss more details.
Thanks
Dr. Patrick Brown
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Anti-fraud resources:
