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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: Silas Jeka <huabadi5@gmail.com>
Reply-To: sjeka888@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2018 19:06:46 +0000
Subject: Hello.
Hello,
Thank you for your reply. I want you to understand that WACIF is not a
bank. This is an organisation introduced by AU for the monitoring /
regulation of international monetary transactions here in Africa. Our
duty is to make sure that bankers and certain financial institutions
are not used as an impediments to restrict monetary transaction from
African continent. Your funds (US$8M) is presently in a Bank here and
without our approval, the bank cannot release your funds or do the
transfer.
It is therefore unbelieveable that you decided to abandon your funds
due to the fact that you were asked to notarise your identification.
For your information, the notarisation of your identification will
enable us to issue a fund release order to the payment bank and once
the approval is issued, the bank MUST release your funds without
further charges or delay. I look forward to your urgent response.
Regards,
Silas.
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Anti-fraud resources:
