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: "Mercedes Benz" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <MercedesBenz@mail2germany.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2017 17:36:55 -0700
Subject: You are a lucky winner

Dear E-mail Owner,

Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! Your e-mail handle was selected in numbers 10121983 that appeared on 1,650 Lottery tickets in the Lottery Promo known as Mercedes-Benz Promo 2017, with your ticket holder winning €150,000.00.

The winning tickets are electronically sold in Mercedes-Benz Promo accredited offices around Germany, but this time they were all selected via electronic system within few countries e-mail/IP network as the Mercedes-Benz Promo 2017 Special September/October of the year 2017.

After all, the secretly electronic selected e-mail addresses with the top prize-winning number amounts to €700,000,000.00 (approximately US$720,000,000.00) marking the Third Quarter lottery program.

Your Payment is assigned to be process by the Processing/Payments Agency here in Germany. You are advised to send us your Full Name, Address and Telephone Number in order to go through the documentation process.

Send the above details to: MercedesBenz@mail2germany.com

You are advised to keep this winning information confidential until you have redeemed your Lucky Prize Winning.

Sincerely yours,

Mercedes-Benz Agent

Anti-fraud resources: