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: "Mr. Stephen Mensah" <stephmensah01@gmail.com>
Reply-To: stephenmensah03@naver.com
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2021 06:19:39 -0700
Subject: GREETINGS TO YOU

Hello Beloved, How are you coping with this Covid-19 Pandemic? I know
this email might come to you as a surprise as we have not met before
but I believe God knows why he has directed me to you at this point in
time.

My name is Mr. Stephen Mensah, I`m a Branch Manager of a Financial
institute , I am writing to solicit your assistance in the transfer of
US$12,500,00. Dollars. This fund is the excess of what my branch in
which I am the manager made as profit last year (i.e. 2020 financial
year). I have already submitted an annual report for this December to
my head office in Accra-Ghana as I have watched with keen interest as
they will never know of this excess of the fund. I have since placed
this amount of US$12,500,000. Dollars on an Escrow Coded account
without a beneficiary (Anonymous) to avoid trace.

As an officer of the bank, I cannot be directly connected to this
money thus I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive
this money into your bank account on my behalf. I agree that 40% of
this money will be for you as a foreign partner, in respect to the
provision of a foreign account, and 60% would be for me. I do need to
stress that there is practically no risk involved in this.

Best Regards
Mr. Stephen Mensah

Anti-fraud resources: