|
|
joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
|
|
"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.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Kwami K Kwaku" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <kwamikkwaku@outlook.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 11:42:56 +0900
Subject: IMPORTANT
Attn Sir/Madam
I'm Mr Kwami K Kwaku a database engineer with International Commercial Bank Ghana. I'm writing this short message to you in expectation of an urgent reaction from you.
I'm in charge of the database which contains record of our transaction,
customer details and Identity in one of our branches in Accra Ghana and I'm contacting you because there's an urgent need for a partner from your country for a quick business dealings with a 50/50 share agreement. We have a customer from the US who used our bank to apply for a contract here in Ghana and the contract has been long concluded and his money paid but the issue is that till date there has been no activities on the Bank account. I have been monitoring the account since the past two years and decided to make my research only to find out that the customer is late. It's a secret only me knows and i'm seeking to use it to my advantage as it will must definitely get to the hands of the top bosses once they realize this.
The total amount is 28 Million Euros, it was paid install-mentally and the
good news is that it is an online account so it can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
Now what I want you to do if interested is to make yourself available and
I will edit the information on the account to your information then the details of the account will be given to you. I will give the contact details of the office to contact in our bank and you will request for reactivation of the account, they will only have to go through the account details which will match yours and approve your request for reactivation.
When this is done, you will be able to transfer the funds in the account to any account of your choice but that will be in Bits to avoid restriction, I will also give you my account information as well which you will have to transfer my part of the 50%. Since i'd be in control of the activities that go on in the account , I will make sure we disburse the funds in it as agreed.
Waiting to hear from you.
Thanks.
|
Anti-fraud resources:
