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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "remain blessed" (scammers in West Africa like to use religious phrases)
- This email message is a "dying widow" scam.
Fraud email example:
From: "Grace N." (may be fake)
Reply-To: <bensr591@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 09:48:05 -0700
Subject: Plea For Sincere Collaboraton
Dear
Greeting to you in the name of our God almighty,
I am the above named person from Saudi Arabia. I was married to NAYEF BIN ABDUL-AZIZ NASSAR who was
from the royal family in Saudi Arabia. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only a few weeks.
While i was looking after him in the hospital i got converted to Christianity and became a born again Christian.
Since his death I decided not to remarry since we have only one daughter and my wish is to take a very good
care of my daughter. His family have been so uncomfortable with my christian faith that they have decided to
take all the belongings from me and send me away.
When my late husband was alive he secretly deposited the sum of $8.5 Million (Eight million five hundred thousand U.S. dollars)
in a finance firm without the knowledge of his family. Please i will need you your assistance to quietly receive these funds on my
behalf and keep them safe until i and my daughter can make our way to your location.
Please get back to me as soon as you can so i can furnish you more details on how we can achieve this.
As soon as you do, i will send you a phone number where you can reach me so we can discuss this extensively.
Thank you and remain blessed.
Mrs. Grace N..
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Anti-fraud resources:
