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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:

Fraud email example:

From: "Mr. Bello" <drericp276@gmail.com>
Reply-To: tamblynbarr47@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2021 21:51:28 -0700
Subject: Can i trust you?

Dear Friend,

Please I want you to read this letter very carefully and I must
apologize for berging this message into your mailbox without any
formal introduction due to the urgency and confidentiality of this
issue and I know that this message will come to you as a surprise.
Please, I urge you to handle this message as a top secret and I will
not like you to joke with it.

I am Mr.Bello, a staff in ADB Bank . As a branch internal auditor of
the bank, I discovered an existing dormant account for years without
any banking activity going on in it; neither deposits nor withdrawals
from this account for this long period. And according to the rules
guiding our bank, any unserviceable account for more than (7) seven
years will be delisted, and the funds, no matter the amount, will be
transferred to the national treasury as an unclaimed fund.

I hope you know the meaning of unclaimed funds; an abandoned fund you
can’t locate the owner, probably because the owner is dead by
sickness, accident, plane crash, natural disaster or murdered without
leaving information about the funds to any relative or friend. Or
funds looted and abandoned by politicians for the fear of being
prosecuted by their government. That's why you have many unclaimed
funds littered in different banks everywhere. And It is only staff
like in my position as an internal auditor of a bank that often come
across such accounts and their details.

I hope that you will not expose or betray this trust and confidence
that I am about to establish with you for the mutual benefit of you
and I. Please, I need us to work together in order to move the funds
out immediately to your possession so that we can share it. I will
assist you to come up with a beneficiary claim to enable the
transferring of the said sum of $10.5 million United States Dollar
into your account within 14 banking days. Once it is done, I will
resign from my work and use my share for better and lucrative
businesses, and remarry since I am divorced, and to continue my life
happily in another beautiful and cozy foreign country of my choice,
with my new family.

As an insider in the bank that you can trust, I can leak-out or
secretly reveal to you every information and document about the
account including the account statement to enable us facilitate it.
The truth is that this account and funds in it have been dormant for
years in our Bank, and the request for a foreigner to be involved in
this deal becomes necessary because our late customer was a foreigner
and a burkinabe cannot stand as Next of Kin to a foreigner. Therefore,
because of the nature of this transaction, I want you to stand as the
Next of kin so that our bank will accord you the recognition and have
the fund transferred to your account. And I promised that I will be
guiding you until the end to avoid any mistake.

Upon your response, I shall then provide you with further information,
including verifiable documents linked to the account and more details
that will help you understand the transaction. I am expecting your
urgent response to enable me inform you how this deal will be
executed.

Please I would like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a
top secret or delete if you are not interested.

With many thanks,
Mr Bello.

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