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: Lesley Jones <cesolution12@gmail.com>
Reply-To: lesleyjones388@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2024 11:11:39 +0100
Subject: Urgent

Hi,

Good day. My name is Lesley Jones from London, United Kingdom. We are
looking for a certain person who owns the email address I contacted you
with. If the email address is yours then you are the one, we have been
looking for all these while. We are glad to bring this news to you. The IMF
in conjunction with the European Union met and agreed that a Vault office
should be used to compensate all scammed victims and your compensation
Amount is $1,000,000 (One million United States dollar) as you are among
the persons who is to be compensated. Twenty one (21) bank and government
officials have been arrested worldwide so far and arrest is still going on.
We have recovered the total sum of 13.4 Million United States dollars from
the scam syndicates in both cash and assets confirmed to have come from
their victims. Email addresses of victims (which include yours) have also
been recovered from their address books. It is at this juncture that we are
contacting you because you are now listed as one of the beneficiaries of
the I.M.F compensation payment. You are hereby warned not to communicate or
duplicate this message to any of the scam syndicates for any reason
whatsoever as the Interpol is already on trace of the other criminals. So
keep it secret till they are all apprehended. Other victims who have not
been contacted can submit their application as well for scrutiny and
possible consideration. Sorry if you received this mail in your spam
folder, due to a recent connection error from the service provider. Waiting
for your response urgently for more details on how to receive these funds
without any problem. Pls. Contact me on this email for more explanation.
lesleyjones388@gmail.com

Regards
Lesley Jones
Head, IMF/EUROPEAN UNION coordinator.
London, United Kingdom

Anti-fraud resources: