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: "Greg Holmes" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <prfdnlmcbll844@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2019 01:23:09 +0100
Subject: Congratulation From Facebook ......30/8/2019

Congratulations Dear Lucky Winner,
 
We are very happy to inform you that your name appear among the winners of Facebook lottery promotion and you have just won the Sum of $650,000.00, U.S Dollars {Six Hundred  and  Fifty Thousand  USD} Your Email was selected in a raffle draw that was made on 20th August, 2019.. Hence, we need your urgent response so that we can proceed in processing the immediate releasing of your winning funds to you with Ticket Number ES 7686605 Serial Number 6774-582 drew Lucky Numbers 7-16-98-22-20-45, which consequently won in this category.
 
Mr. Mark Zuckerberg the CEO of Facebook (Founder & Chief Executive Officer) The promotion was made to make all Facebook users benefit from the gain, as the company Named Facebook is the first and ever largest means of meeting both old and new friends. The promo was done to serve as a means of appreciation to visitors on our site and also to help people to fight off poverty and to maintain some people standard of living.
 
Note: This is 100% Real and Legal and any user of the Facebook who is not interested should not bother to reply and shouldn't reply with an abusive word back to our Staff. Your winning will be sent to you through certify Check/Draft. All winnings must be claimed not later than 30th august 2019. After this date, all unclaimed funds will be included in the next stake. To avoid unnecessary delays and complications please remember to quote your reference and numbers in your response if there is any change in email address please contact us on time.
 
We look forward to hearing from you.
 
Yours faithfully,
Greg Holmes
 
For: CDAA.
Facebook, Inc. 415 P.O Box 10005 Palo Alto CA 94303
Description above from the Wikipedia article Greg Holmes, licensed
Under CC-BY-SA full list of contributors here. Community Pages are not
Affiliated with, or endorsed by, anyone associated with the topic.
Mr. Mark Zuckerberg
CEO Facebook.

Anti-fraud resources: