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: "Latifa Tahira" <test@andrevillemont.com>
Reply-To: tahiralatifa582@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 09 May 2018 02:56:45 -0700
Subject:

Hello,

Please is it okay to communicate in English?

I am Mrs. Latifa Tahira, a Syrian woman. I desire to relocate to your country due to the prolonged civil unrest/war in Syria, as well as the daily life-threatening attacks by ISIS terrorist group. I've already lost my family, my husband and daughter to the cold hands of death during an attack targeted at our home on March 23, 2016, to end our family. I and my son were not around during the cross fire. we were at the hospital for checkup when the attacked our home killing my beloved husband and my daughter and setting the house ablaze. I am in tears writing you this mail. He (my late husband) was a very successful contractor in the oil city of Syria and was privately dealing on gold dust and bars before his untimely death. Expectedly, he left behind some reasonable amount of money, which I desire to invest in the Real Estate sector, Travel & Tourism, Hotel Management and other interesting sectors in your country.

As you may or may not know, the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union have made it nearly impossible to successfully operate any type of investment here in Syria or to even transfer money from here to other parts of the world. For this reason, I am contacting you in great confidence with the hope that you could help me get this money into your country for investment purposes:

Please I would like to know how convenient it might be for you to assist me in this way. The entire capital at my disposal is Nine Million Euro. I secretly locked up the money in a trunk box and deposited it with the Red Cross here in Damascus. My sincere intention in writing you is to plead with you to kindly accept the money box. This is because we cannot do any bank transfers from here following the war. These are the major issues of concern to me now. I will give you 30% of the total money as your benefit for helping me.

I have to take this chance because I have no other alternative but to trust somebody. I cannot risk my life here to avoid an end to my family lineage. As a woman, since my husband and daughter are dead, all I have is my only son. He deserves a decent life since I want him to grow up in a peaceful environment. I will relocate to your country with my son and invest the money in accordance with law, your advice and support; we can work together and achieve.

I anticipate your positive response and on receipt of your information I will provide you with further details.

Yours faithfully,

Latifa Tahira.

Anti-fraud resources: