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: mr_stephen218@eriasonline.com
Reply-To: mr.stephen.tshabalala1@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2016 13:07:52 +0200
Subject: I will appreciate your timely response.


Greetings,
First I must solicit your confidence in this transaction; this is by virtu=
e of its nature as it is utterly top secret. I know it may come to you as a=
surprise, but I sincerely apologize if it invades on your privacy. My name=
is Mr. Stephen Tshabalala, Chief System Analyst of Nedbank South Africa, W=
estville Branch, Kwazulu Natal. I am a South African. =


I am writing to solicit for your assistance in the transfer of USD$10,200,0=
00.00 (Ten Million Two Hundred Thousand U.S Dollars). This amount is part o=
f the funds stashed into South Africa by the late Libyan President (Muammar=
Gaddafi) before his sudden death in 2011. As the Chief Data custodian of t=
he bank, I cloned the amount placed it in a suspense account without a bene=
ficiary. By so doing, I deleted the data of the original beneficiary and sa=
ved it as unclaimed funds without a beneficiary. I need to move the fund as=
an investment funds out from our bank. Here I need your assistant.

As an officer of the bank, I cannot be directly connected to this fund thus=
I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive this fund into you=
r bank account. I intend to part 30% of this fund to you while 70% shall be=
for me.I do need to stress that there is practically no risk involved, hen=
ce it is going to be a bank-to-bank transfer. All I need from you is to sta=
nd as the original depositor of this fund.

I will appreciate your timely response and I will initiate this process tow=
ards an immediate conclusion.

Regards,
Mr. Stephen Tshabalala.
E-mail: mr.stephen.tshabalala1@gmail.com
=20

Anti-fraud resources: