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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:
- 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.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Mr Bernard Lauwers <browncampaore@gmail.com>
Reply-To: bmlauwers961@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 05:36:29 -0700
Subject: Hello Am Mr Bernard Lauwers.
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Attn: Greetings
My name is Mr Bernard Lauwers and I am one of the assistants of Mr. Bo
Li the current Managing Director of the IMF (The International
Monetary Fund) here in Washington DC. You can view our website at
www.imf.org
The reason for my email to you today is to let you know that, unknown
to the general public The IMF receives close to a total of US$10
billion each year in donations from wealthy philanthropists around the
world. Some of the donations are even bestowed anonymously. I am
contacting you to let you know that I am in a position to earmark some
of these funds for disbursement which can fall under the category of
either loans or humanitarian purposes.If you have a business that you
think would qualify for either an interest free loan or
humanitarian assistance please get in touch with me upon receiving
this email. I would then refer you to a contact that would help you by
filling out the exact forms and guiding you through the procedures for
you to receive funds anywhere from $5 million to $20 million. You
would in effect have an “inside person†telling you exactly how to get
funds from The IMF in a fully legitimate way.For my assistance, I
would ask that once you receive funding that you kick back 10% of the
funds to me, if it is a loan, and 20% of the funds if it is for
humanitarian purposes.
Please let me know if you are interested and I will call you for a
discussion. It is against
protocol to offer anyone this type of assistance, so I have written to
you from my private email to start. I can give you my official email
address once we get started.
If I do not hear back from you in the next 5 days I will assume you
are not interested and I will continue my search for someone who is.
However if you are interested, please send me your direct phone number
so that we can speak.
Hoping to hear from you.
Sincerely
Mr Bernard Lauwers
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