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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.

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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "Zenith Bank" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <zbk.pl@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 01:00:21 +0100
Subject: Very Urgent Message..guest


Read Carefully,

This is to bring to your notice that the United Nations (U.N) in affiliation with International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a just concluded sanction programs has agreed to compensate 500 scam victims$250,000.00 USD,and your email address was found in the scam victim's list. Our bank has been mandated by the IMF to transfer your compensation to you.

Your particulars was mentioned by one of the syndicates who was arrested as one of the victims of their operations. You are hereby warned not to communicate or duplicate this message to him or her for any reason whatsoever as the US SECRET SERVICE is already on trace of the other criminals,these information should be kept confidential.

We need your information as where we will be sending your funds, such as,

1)Full Names
2)Home Address
3)Nationality:
4)Age
5)Sex
6)Occupation
7)Mobile Number.
8) Amount you lost


Note that your payment files will be returned to the IMF within 72 hours if we did not hear from you, this was the instruction given to us by the IMF.


Awaiting Your Response

Best Regards,
Rev Ade

Anti-fraud resources: