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: "Prof. Michel Konczaty" <michel.konczaty@bnpparibas.com>
Reply-To: contact@michelkonczaty.com
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2019 05:18:03 -0500
Subject: My Last Email, I am still waiting for your response

Good Morning,

My sincere apologies if the contents of this mail doesn't meet your
personal quirks but if you know to what extend I went to get your
contact you will appreciate the information I wish to share with you in
this message. In the year 2003 the subject matter, a billionaire from
your country whom I presumed to be your relative because of the
similarity in your last names came to our bank to engage in business
discussions with a huge financial portfolio worth £20.7 millions pounds
which he wished to have us turn over (invest) on his behalf. We turned
the funds around various opportunities and made attractive margins for
our first year of operation which was repeated the following year until
the year 05 when he Requested that the funds be liquidated for onward
transfer because he desired to make an urgent investment requiring cash
payments. I undertook all the processes and had the assets liquidated,
and surprisingly that was the last time we heard from him. Both the bank
and myself did everything humanly possible to track him down all to no
avail, and since he listed no next-of-kin in his Know Your Customer
(KYC) form which is peculiar with high profile investors, I had no one
to contact. Those of us who are familiar with investment banking
procedures, knows that those who patronize our services prefers some
level of privacy and detachment from conventional banking. They prefer
to operate their accounts with pins and codes. It was few years after
his surprise disappearance that I stumbled upon the Venezuela plane
crash manifest where I discovered he actually died in the aforementioned
plane crash on Tuesday, 16th of August 2005. There is right now, a huge
financial portfolio worth £20.7 millions pounds plus accrued interest
abandoned in our bank all these years and now awaiting the direction of
my pen. If I sit and do nothing, the funds will revert back into our
treasury as unclaimed. This is why I'm contacting you to present you as
a relative to the deceased investor. All that needs to be done is for me
to from the bank data base/system insert your name into his Client
Information Sheet (CIS) and have you listed as the collateral heir to
the abandoned estate, and once your name appears in his file as the
heir, the funds automatically becomes yours by right of inheritance.
Then we follow legally our bank inheritance claim procedures, secured
the funds and share it equally afterward. There is no risk what-so-ever
involved in this project because it is simply an inheritance. I have
evaluated the entire process with my vast of experience and the only
hitches I envisage here is from you, refusing to work with me, alerting
my bank or guided with fear and disbelief as a result of low propensity
to trust as such mistake this proposal for a hoax; junk or scam
otherwise the funds is there for an easy pick for us. I await your
response.


Thank You

Yours Sincerely
Prof. Michel Konczaty
Deputy Chief Operating Officer
BNP Paribas, Paris France

Anti-fraud resources: