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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.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Nelson Wills <suliaomar@gmail.com>
Reply-To: nelsonhadmiswilliamss@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2017 16:55:23 -0700
Subject: Re; Hey dear .... I have a good news for you.
Good day and Compliments
I wanted to connect with you because i found your name in the family
genealogical ancestry directory of late engineer Valnizie
Majeed-Ahmad, a civil engineer and a client of my bank who died some
years ago. ... Your name appear just behind this late client's own
name in the family ancestry directory and my recent findings and
verification indicates that both of you are of the same extended
family ties and are related. In any case, i want to inform you that
you have been chosen to inherit this late client's death insurance
benefit/deposit worth million of dollars in my bank as his only
traceable extended family member available since no one else has ever
come up to claim his fund long after his death in 2009. I am revealing
this to you because i was the deceased account officer and financial
adviser before his untimely death and no one else knows about this
unclaimed fund in my bank. So we can secretly work out the transfer of
the fund to you because i am the only one who has information to the
deceased deposit. So lets talk and discuss further on this for better
explanation. My alternative email; nel22contactoffice@web.co.zw
Respectfully,
Nelson Wills
LONDON
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Anti-fraud resources:
