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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:
- "hundred thousand united states dollars" (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)
- "top secret" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Emirates NBD Bank" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <abdullah_qassem@emirates.net.ae>
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2016 20:00:00 +0100
Subject: Re: Abdullah..
Dear Partner
My name is Abdullah Qassem, Group Chief Operating Officer Emirates NBD. I am contacting you to see if we can make a deal, I discovered an unclaimed inheritance fund of $10.5M(Ten Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) in our bank. The fund belongs to Mutassim Gaddafi, the late son of Libyan Leader Muammar Al-Qaddafi who died along with his father on the 20th of October 2011. I have not discussed this issue with anybody because of it is of top secret.
Since the death of our customer, I have been nursing plans secretly on how to move this fund out of UAE for investment. I also found out from enquires and foreign media that our late customer siphoned a lot of money from his country while his father was in office as the head of state. It is my conviction that the fund in our vault was part of the money that our client siphoned and now that he is dead, there is no trace to this money in our care.
I am now soliciting your noble assistance in moving this fund out of United Arab Emirates to your country for subsequent investment with your assistance. I will take care of erasing every trace of this fund from our banking system here, as soon as the fund is transferred to your account abroad.
Please get back to me with the following information via e-mail for more details:
Full name: ......................
Contact address: ................
Nationality: ....................
Phone number: ...................
Occupation:......................
Age/sex: ........................
I will furnish you with more details as I hear from you.
Regards
Abdullah Qassem
Group Chief Operating Officer
Emirates NBD
Dubai United Arab Emirates
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Anti-fraud resources:
