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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:

Fraud email example:

From: Bassey Joseph <basseyjoseph222@gmail.com>
Reply-To: bassey_joseph012@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 08:53:53 +0100
Subject: HELLO

From the desk of: Mr. Bassey Joseph
UN Liaison Office Lagos-Nigeria
17 Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi Lagos, Nigeria

Attn: Honorable Contractor

First I must apologize for contacting you if you find my help not
worthy. My problem is that I hate to see people being cheated for no
reason. I am a junior staff at the UN liaison office here in Africa
and while going through some of the files in my office, I discovered
that some foreigners are being used by some of our Senior Directors,
Banks Executives and the Government officials.

I found out that your payment has long been approved to be paid to you
but the greed which exist in the lives of the senior workers will
never allow them to let you have your contract/lottery/inheritance
payment. I noticed that you have been fighting for this payment for
years now not knowing that the officials have been using it to trade
at the international market. Please be informed that your contract
payment was approved to be paid to you and has since been released by
the Federal government but this money has not yet been credited to
your account. I have found out that these top officials are using your
money to trade at the International Market buying stocks and making
interest while delaying your payment.

These officials use delay tactics to hold on to your payment while
they make money. They will tell you that your transfer will be made
today and when that time comes, they will come up with another excuse
why your payment was stopped or cancelled, enough of all that.

In my further search I found out that some of the Beneficiaries are
not even aware of this payment. They don't even know that such
payments exist for them after many years of fruitless efforts, they
abandon it. I am contacting you secretly believing that you will keep
this as top secret. I want to work with you to move these funds to
your account within
two weeks (maximum) if only you can accept to work with me.

Believe me, if you work with these bank executives and other
Government officials, all they will keep doing will be to delay the
transfer while they make more profit with your payment. I have worked
out modalities on how this transfer will be effected to your account
immediately for you to start enjoying your benefits.

Please one thing I must ask of you is to keep this secret until we get
the transfer made to your account. If you will not be able to handle
the secret part of this, please let me know and I will never contact
you again because what I want is to see that justice is done and your
money is released to you. This payment is in your name and belongs to
you so you should have it.

I need immediately your current telephone number and address so that
we can begin the process of re-approving the funds for payment to your
designated account details which you will provide later.

Once again, I ask that you keep this very secret and confidential
until transfer is confirmed in your account.

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Bassey Joseph
UN Liaison Office Lagos-Nigeria

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