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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:
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "united state of america" (this email uses bad English)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Rotimi Amaech" <gctv11@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: rotimi@qq.com
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2016 10:04:22 -0400
Subject: I NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOU URGENTLY, PLEASE.
Hi, my name is Chief Rotimi C. Ameachi, I was a formal governor of an oil rich state and currently the Minister of Road and Transport and also overseeing the aviation sector in Nigeria. I got your contact through a discrete and reliable online web profiler.
I have a cash payment of over US$25,000,000.00 which was a proceed from a completed contract project and I want to hand it over to you to hold for me pending when I complete my assignment and relocate permanently to United State of America. But before I can proceed further with details on business transaction of this size and nature it is necessary that I have unalloyed guarantee that you can be trusted.
I will be responsible for providing all the needed finance for the transaction; all that will be required of you is to provide a United State Based account or any other account with a known and trusted bank any other place. And to assure you of my sincerity, we will require that the account that you provide has a zero balance (0.00) in it.
You will be entitled to 20% of the total amount while the rest will be kept for me. Please respond to me at your earliest convenience.
Chief Rotimi C. A.
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Anti-fraud resources:
