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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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:
- "top secret" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
- This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- pp315607500@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "ATTN Beneficiary" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <pp315607500@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2020 22:45:31 +0100
Subject: :
I am contacting you because I have very important information to release to you regarding your long overdue payment. I do not know how to communicate this to you because I do not want to lose my job as a Monetary Agent attached to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It might interest you to know that there have been some irregularities going on and the people handling your funds' release has been defrauding you, extorting money from you falsely without going through the due process or legal procedures. They are only doing this to divert your funds to another account. The are also involved in this and I will only feed you with more details if you assure me that you will never tell or disclose this information to anyone. I will also assist you in getting your funds released to you if you assure me of your absolute sincerity and cooperation. This is top secret and you are advised to keep confidential till after you have received the funds.
Jeffrey Franks
Monetary Agent, IMF.
E-mail: pp315607500@gmail.com
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Anti-fraud resources:
