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: Fbi Department <fbid96586@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dhlc375@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2023 05:55:46 -0700
Subject: WHATSAPP ONLY +2347012384957 OR EMAIL dhlc375@gmail.com

WHATSAPP ONLY +2347012384957 OR EMAIL dhlc375@gmail.com

Greeting to you, I am John Wilson from Federal Express Delivery
Company (FedEx). I'm contacting you regarding your parcel that has
been registered with us for shipment to your residential address, we
thought the sender gave you our contact details, so we have been
waiting on you to contact us for your parcel till now. It might
interest you to know that a letter is also added to your parcel which
we cannot quote the content to you via text for privacy reasons. But
we understand that the content of your parcel is a Bank Draft Check
worth ($15,400,000.00) in an envelope.

Contact me urgently with your information:
Address _, Full Name _,
Phone Number _,
Copy of your ID _,

Note: You have to pay the Approval and stamp fee of $350 as it has not
been paid. You are to purchase Razer Gold or Steam Wallet or apple gift cards.

Regards,
John Wilson

Anti-fraud resources: