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: US ARMY ENVOY <publicservice325@gmail.com>
Reply-To: fredshaw32@outlook.com
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2022 13:42:58 -0700
Subject:


Dear Friend ;
I know this message will come to you as a surprise, but do not ignore it. I
got your email address through a google search, so I decided to email you.
I Will not be surprised if you ignore this message because it is hard to
identify the real person who is telling the truth. My name is Fred
Rickshaw, to this date I served as US Army special envoy to Syria and also
as a Lieutenant colonel. I am married to Michelle Shaw and we had a female
child. I’m currently in Syria with my teams, working with the Syrian
force(s) to help protect the oil fields from ISIS and ISWAP. Apparently, I
do not have any formal relationship with you and I have not met you in
person, for that reason, you might be wondering why I took time to reveal
my private circumstances to you.

Well, my solemn purpose of reaching out to you today is about my late wife
Michelle Shaw. (May her soul rest in peace) before my trip to Syria, I left
my wife and my daughter in my house in Washington DC. During my first year
here in Syria, I got sad news about the death of my wife. She died of
cancer. It's now two years since the demise of my wife. I kept on trying to
go back to the USA to conduct a burial arrangement for my wife, but all my
attempts proved abortive. To this date, I have not communicated with my
daughter and her whereabouts are unknown to me. I have tried too many times
to reach out to her (My daughter) through the email, but all the messages I
sent to her came back undelivered. Afterwards, I found out that the
internet connectivity here in Syria was badly damaged, that's why it is
impossible for me to send or receive messages.I'm not sure If you will get
this message or not, but I will stop here until I get a response from you.
Note: my solemn purpose of reaching out to you, is not for you to help me
financially, I Will further state the reason for this message once you get
back to me. I hope to receive your response on my personal email address:
FREDSHAW32@OUTLOOK.COM

Yours sincerely,
Fred Shaw, US Soldier and special envoy to Syria.

Anti-fraud resources: