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: "Maroof Omar" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <maroofomar234@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2017 13:40:40 -0800
Subject: Urgent Assistance needed

Good day, I implore you to please take time and go through this email carefully as the decision you make will go off a long way to determine my future and continued existence, I am Abdulkader Omar, a member of a strategic committee in Syria, I seek your partnership because of an urgent need to move my family out of Syria due to the deteriorating security situation and the strong Prospect of the civil war. The current security situation is terrible here in Syria, I want to take my family out of Syria to a Democratic Nation but I have not moved them yet due to the present situation now, the Assad Government would not let the strategic committee members out. I have confirmed that 10 of our members has died, I don't know what will happen in the next couple of days. As a current member of a Government committee, I must be careful. I don’t really know you in person but please understand that I would like to know a little about you. It's based on plea that I am contacting you to please welcome my family to your country and assist them in investing the sum of Fourteen Million, Two Hundred Thousand United States Dollars in any good business. I look forward to receiving your reply so that I can give you full details on how you can receive the investment amount of US$14,200.000.00 and then arrange for my family to relocate to your country. Please contact me on this e-mail if you can assist: maroofomar234@gmail.com Yours truly, Maroof Omar

Anti-fraud resources: