Advance-fee scam

See also: Scambaiting

An advance fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain. Among the variations on this type of scam are the Nigerian Letter (or 419 fraud) and "The Spanish Prisoner."

Warnings issued by United States government

The United States Federal Trade Commission has issued a consumer alert about the Nigerian scam. It says:

"If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of Nigeria — or any other country, for that matter — forward it to the FTC at spam@uce.gov."

The United States Department of the Treasury maintains an email address to which the public may send 419 related documents when they have incurred no financial loss. These emails are archived to assist in future investigations.

If there is a financial loss, people are asked to file a Financial Loss complaint form online with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is a partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at http://www.ic3.gov.

History

The 419 scam originated in the early 1990s as the oil-based economy of Nigeria went downhill. Several unemployed university students first used this scam as a means of manipulating business visitors interested in shady deals in the Nigerian oil sector before targeting businessmen in the west, and later the wider population. Early variants were often sent via letter, fax, or even Telex. The spread of email and easy access to email-harvesting software made the cost of sending scam letters through the Internet extremely cheap. While various figures claim that the 419 scam employs as many as 250,000 people in Nigeria, in reality it has often been linked to small organized gangs, who often work together, both in western cities and in Nigeria. In recent years, the 419 scam has spurred imitations from other locations in Africa and Eastern Europe.

The number "419" refers to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code (part of Chapter 38: "Obtaining Property by false pretences; Cheating") dealing with fraud. The American Dialect Society has traced the term "419 fraud" back to 1992.

The advance fee fraud is a derivation of a much older scam dating back to 1588 in the form of a Spanish Prisoner scam. The fictitious prisoner would promise to share non-existent treasure with the person who would send them money to bribe their guards.

Implementation

The 'investors' are contacted, typically with an offer of the type "A rich person from the needy country needs to discreetly move money abroad, would it be possible to use your account?". The sums involved are usually in the millions of dollars, and the investor is promised a large share, often forty percent. The proposed deal is often presented as a "harmless" white-collar crime, in order to dissuade participants from later contacting the authorities. Similarly, the money is often said to be the embezzled funds of a recently deposed or killed dictator. The operation is professionally organized in Nigeria, with offices, working fax numbers, and often contacts at government offices. The investor who attempts to research the background of the offer will often find that all pieces fit perfectly together.

If they then agree to the deal, the other side will first send several documents bearing official government stamps, seals etc., and then introduce delays, such as "in order to transmit the money, we need to bribe a bank official. Could you help us with a loan?" or "In order for you to be allowed to be a party to the transaction, you need to have holdings at a Nigerian bank of $100,000 or more" or similar. More delays and more additional costs are added, always keeping the promise of an imminent large transfer alive. Sometimes psychological pressure is added by claiming that the Nigerian side, in order to pay certain fees, had to sell all belongings and borrow money on their house, or by pointing out the different salary scale and living conditions in Africa compared to the west. Most of the time, however, the needed psychological pressure is self-applied; once the victim has put money in toward the payoff, they feel they have a vested interest in seeing the "deal" through.

In any case, the promised money transfer never happens. The money or gold does not exist.

Such spam is often sent from Internet cafes equipped with satellite Internet. Recipient addresses and email content are copied and pasted into a webmail interface using a standalone storage medium, such as a memory card. Many areas of Lagos, such as Festac, contain many shady cybercafes that serve scammers; many cybercafes seal their doors during afterhours, such as from 10:30 PM to 7:00 AM, so that scammers inside may work without fear of discovery [2].

Nigeria also contains many businesses that provide false documents used in scams; after a scam involving a forged signature of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in summer 2005, Nigerian authorities raided a market in the Oluwole section of Lagos. The police seized thousands of Nigerian and non-Nigerian passports, 10,000 blank British Airways boarding passes, 10,000 United States money orders, customs documents, false university certificates, 500 printing plates, and 500 computers [3].

Some London-based gangs have been known to use spamware on laptops which they surreptitiously connect to the cafe's network, but even this software is notably out-of-date. While this method is significantly more labour-intensive per mail sent than others, it offers near-total anonymity and allows them to very quickly and easily relocate. The often very professional layout of web pages and so on used in the scams suggests that they do not lack technical sophistication.

Suspicious signs in emails

As well as the email subject or contents, there are often some clear signs that 419 scam emails contain which should alert a recipient to be suspicious:

1. "Name dropping" - the naming of a reputable business, government body, or bank, or the description of some event which is reported in a reputable online newspaper. Often a link will be provided to a newspaper report on the death of a supposed bank account holder, or the arrest of a supposed family member.
2. Inappropriate contact - for example, a lottery win may be emailed by a person claiming to work in a bank. Or, the sender claims to be a lawyer but the email address does not look like one written by a member of the legal establishment.
3. Mobile phone numbers - the contact numbers will be cell (mobile) phones, or fax, not landline. In the UK, such numbers start with +44-7, 07- or 7-, although with public VOIP services increasingly available in major financial centres, use of apparently land line numbers (+44-20 for London) is on the rise.
4. Free email accounts - the reply-to email address will often not match the company claimed. Thus a person may claim to be writing from HSBC (a major bank) but the email address used is a free Hotmail or Yahoo! account. Scammers will sometimes attempt to forestall this criticism by saying they are using their "private" email address so their "bosses" will not discover the plan.
5. Unearned praise - the email, from a complete stranger, almost always speaks to the mark's reputation for honesty, integrity, and above all else discretion. The praise would be strong if it were not coming from a complete stranger.
6. Poor English - despite the supposed formal titles (diplomats and bankers are frequent), emails sent by such scammers will often clearly reflect an inability to write in proper English; serious spelling and grammar mistakes are quite common.

Variants

Invitation to visit the country

Sometimes, victims are invited to a country to meet real or fake government officials. Some victims who do travel are instead held for ransom. In some rumoured cases they are smuggled into the country without a visa and then threatened into giving up more money, as the penalties for being in a foreign country without a visa are severe. In the most extreme cases the victim has even been murdered.

Credit card use through IP Relay

In another variation of the scam, the scammer places calls through IP Relay, a US federally funded internet telerelay service for deaf/hard of hearing/speech-disabled individuals. The scammer calls various businesses, attempting to purchase items with stolen or fraudulent credit cards. Often, individuals are targeted as well, most of whom have advertised a product or service online.

Typically, in an IP-Relay scam call, the scammer will place several calls using a Relay Operator. Calling to businesses or private parties, the scammer will inquire about merchandise/services offered, and then immediately and with few questions asked, attempt to purchase the merchandise. The scammer (who refer to each other as "guyman") then proceeds to ask the potential victim (known in Nigeria as a "Mugu"; a Lagos pidgin word for "fool") for an e-mail address, by which he can contact the victim to proceed with the closing of the fraudulent transaction.

The scammer proceeds to send the victim a counterfeit cheque or money order, with instructions requiring that it be cashed, and that excess funds be sent back to the scammer (advance fee fraud). When it is determined by the authorities that the money order is counterfeit, the victim is usually arrested and charged with various offenses relating to the scam.

Credit-card fraud is not the only kind of fraud reported through IP Relay. A relay scammer typically will use IP Relay for all fraudulent-related transactions/telephone calls within the United States.

Often a scammer will browse through online classified ads (such as craigslist.org) and will use the IP Relay service to contact sellers to make inquiries about the item listed in the ad. Most commonly the scammers target persons whose ads advertise live animals (i.e. puppies), automobiles, high-dollar electronic devices, etc. In this scenario, the scammer sends the seller a cheque for the advertised item with an overpayment- The victim is given instructions to cash the cheque or money-order and to wire the remaining balance via Western Union or Moneygram. The victim is at a loss in this situation when the authorities discover the cheque/money order is not legitimate.

Because of current FCC regulations and confidentiality laws, operators are required to relay every call verbatim and must adhere to a strict code of confidentiality and ethics. Thus no relay operator is permitted to make judgements about the legality and/or legitimacy of any relay call and must relay the call without interference. As such, the relay operator cannot warn victims even when they suspect that the call is a scam; Some sources claim that up to half of all IP relay calls are scams.

Some IP Relay companies have certain fraud criteria in which a supervisor is able to come on the line and inform the person that has been called that the call "fits a pattern of fraudulent and illegal activity". It is then up to the voice person whether he or she wishes to continue the call.

Romance angle

Main article: Romance scam

A recent variant is the "Romance Scam" which is a money-for-romance angle. The victim is usually approached on an Online dating service and becomes interested in a "lady" or "man" who has attractive pictures posted, generally stolen from online portfolios of modeling agencies. The offending party claims to be interested in meeting the victim, but needs some cash up front in order to book the plane, hotel room, and other expenses. In other cases he or she may have just travelled to Nigeria (for tourism or business) and has been arrested by corrupt officials, stranded at a hotel, has money orders (which are counterfeit) that can't be cashed, or become ill from eating the local food, and needs an emergency wire transfer to bail or bribe his/her way out. As with other variants, money always seems to travel to Africa mainly via Western Union, and the "lady" or "man" always seems to come up with additional reasons for requesting more funds. This version of the scam is, at its core, identical to the classic Spanish Prisoner con, which dates back to the Renaissance. This type of scam also frequently originates in Russia or Ukraine as well as Nigeria.

Auction overpayment, fake check

In another updated scam, the scammer offers to buy some expensive item (e.g., jewelry or a car, that the prospective victim advertised on eBay, for example, or a legitimate classified-ads website such as craigslist) by official, certified, bank or cashier's check. The check will have an "accidentally" or mutually agreed higher value than the price of the item, so the scammer asks the victim to wire the extra money to some third party as soon as the check clears. Because banks in the USA are required by law to honor a check within 1-5 working days (even before a check has cleared), they will report the proceeds as available for withdrawal before the check is presented to the issuing bank for clearance and the fraud is discovered. Most banks will hold the victim accountable for the value of the counterfeit check. There is a simple way to avoid many instances of eBay auction overpayment fraud. The scammer usually or always wants to buy the merchandise immediately, so if the auction offers a "Buy It Now" option, the scammer will use it to end the auction, request shipping, and offer the overpayment. Therefore, if the seller avoids offering "Buy It Now," the scammer will be able only to send the seller a message requesting to buy the item immediately for an overpayment. The seller can then deny (or simply ignore) the request. This type of scam tends to target laptop computers, for obvious reasons. If a seller's auction is ended by someone clicking Buy It Now, there is still a way to detect scamming. The buyer will ask the seller to ship to a different address. The buyer will hide the address until he/she sends the seller a shipping label to print. The shipping label's information will reveal a faraway address--often in Lagos, Nigeria--that the seller may not have wanted to ship to.

A variation on the eBay scam involves sending a request for payment for an item that the alleged seller does not own but claims to have sent. Since actual eBay item numbers are used this has been a nuisance for legitimate sellers.

False escrow

Another method is after winning a bid on items on the online auction site eBay (especially laptops or other consumer electronics), to suggest to use an escrow service. The escrow service is fraudulent and part of the scam. The victim will send the laptop or camera to the escrow service, never to hear from the scammer or escrow service again. The website of the escrow service will typically go offline after the victim has sent his goods. Some scammers send e-mails masquerading as official e-mails from PayPal to convince the victim that the escrow method is perfectly normal procedure; some of the e-mails contain spelling errors.

A variation of this scam is to adopt a more personal approach. The "buyer" bids for and wins the item on sale, only to then claim that it is actually to be a gift for a relative in Nigeria and asks for it to be sent direct there, even if the seller has specified that he or she will ship only within his or her own country. In order to facilitate the scam, the fraudulent buyer will often create a brand new legitimate eBay user account complete with a false address that is apparently in the seller's home country, but which will not pass any kind of real inspection as the scammer will often create errors with the spelling, geography or postal code formats. As with escrow scams, the eBay ID will disappear as soon as the victim has sent the goods, and the scammers tend to target inexperienced first time, private sellers [4].

Hitman

An e-mail is sent to the victim's inbox, supposedly from a hitman who has been hired by a "close friend" of the recipient to kill him/her, but will call off the hit in exchange for a large sum of money. This is usually backed up with a warning not to contact the local police or FBI, or the "hitman" will be forced to go through with the plan. [5]

eBay/Western Union scam

This scam involves eBay and the appeal of high priced goods, usually electronics, for a bargain price. A seller will advertise an item (camera, laptop, plasma TV) at low cost. The body of the ad instructs buyers to contact the seller directly outside of eBay at a yahoo or hotmail type account. When contact is made, the seller gives a long story about his problems receiving payment by Paypal - eBay's payment arm. The seller insists that the buyer send money by Western Union. The allure is that the product is a huge bargain; (eg. $2000 item for $700) Of course, if money is sent, it is gone forever and no product is ever delivered. The phony seller usually has a list of prepared e-mails to respond quickly to questions from buyers; he'll go on about how his integrity is important, how he wouldn't risk his family's name, he's legit, check 'his' feedback, etc.

The phony seller makes the listing look credible by using a real eBay id to list the item. The real id has been stolen from a legitimate seller with good feedback, usually by means of e-mail phishing.

Lottery scam

Main article: Lottery scam

Lottery scam involves fake notices of lottery wins. The winner will usually be asked to send sensitive information to a free email account. This is a form of advance fee fraud as money in advance is often required and is also similar to phishing.

Much like the Auction overpayment fraud detailed above, a new variant of the lottery scam involves fake or stolen checks being sent to the 'winner' of the lottery (these checks representing a part payment of the winnings). The winner will then be more likely to assume that the win is legitimate and subsequently more likely to send the fee (which he does not realize is an advance fee). The check, and associated funds, will then be flagged by the bank when the fraud is discovered and debited from the victim's account.

Inheritance scam

A variant of the scam will appear to be sent by a lawyer representing the estate of some long-lost relative the victim never knows he or she had (the victim's surname will be inserted into the e-mail message) who perished along with his or her family in a car or airplane accident a short period of time ago (usually a few months). The scammer will claim to have gone to a lot of trouble to find the victim in order to give him or her a share of the millions of dollars available if the victim will forward his or her bank account information to the scammer.

False online storefront scam

A website is set up offering too-good-to-be-true prices on popular goods. For an undisclosed reason payments cannot be made using credit cards or check but only via untraceable means such as Western Union or e-gold. The buyer pays the money but never receives the goods, and is unable to reverse the transaction.

Classified advertisement scams

In a classified advertisement scam, scammers respond to an advertisement for anything that is being advertised at a reasonably high price (for example a car, a computer or a snowboard). There are various variants of this scam; typically, scammers, after an initial phase of feigned interest, agree to buy the item and offer to pay for it with a cheque with a much higher value than the agreed price, using various excuses. The scammer will ask to have most of the difference paid back in cash at time of collection, supposedly leaving the rest to the victim as a reward for their flexibility and inconvenience. The collection will be arranged soon after the money will be made available in the victim's bank account. The victim will not realise that having the funds available is different from having the cheque cleared, and therefore will happily agree to the terms. The cheque clearing process can take weeks, after which the bank will claim the whole sum back because the cheque is fake.

This is also used over the IP Relay. There is a case where the scammer requests a Driver's License or International Passport be faxed over as he represents a close friend of his who is dying.

Tutor scams

In this variation the scammer responds to an ad placed by a tutor-for-hire, such as a music instructor, explaining his need for a tutor for his child who will soon be relocating to the tutor's area. Often the scammer will want a suspiciously high amount of instruction for his child and will of course want to pay for multiple weeks of instruction in advance via money order or cashier's check. The dead give-away is usually the scammer's request for very specific list of information e.g. "full name, address, city, state, zip, phone number" in the first or second email. The rest of the scam is the same as other fake check/wire transfer scams, where a fake check or money order for more than the agreed price is sent to the victim, then the scammer requests that the victim wire the balance back to him or someone he owes a debt.

Escort scams

In this variant of a classified advertisement scam, a scammer answers an online escort advertisement, typically posing as a wealthy businessman traveling from Nigeria or London to the escort's city of residence. The scammer contacts an escort claiming to be interested in a long-term companionship arrangement of days or even weeks in length, the total time involved totalling to a substantial sum of money. The scammer offers to pay in advance by cheque in excess of the net payment and asks for remittance of the balance. This version is especially popular as escorts in many cases cannot safely contact legal authorities for any reason and are unlikely to report successful or attempted fraud. A variant of the escort scam involves translators and interpreters who are asked to escort a businessman or his family for a few days.

Black money scam

Black money scam or wash wash: A "money cleaning" scam involving a huge amount of black papers (purportedly $100 USD bank notes covered by a black film to sneak them past the custom officers) that is shown to the victim, who is then requested to pay for “expensive chemicals” to cleanse the bills.

Rental scams

Where the victim (i.e., a prospective tenant) is looking to rent accommodation, the scammer will answer a classified advertisement offering a high-standard place for a low cost, even showing pictures of the said rooms. The victim is required to pay a deposit, but once the scammer has received the deposit he will disappear leaving the victim out-of-pocket.

Where the victim (e.g., landlord) is looking to find a tenant for their accommodation, the scammer poses as an "interested" party who is looking to move to said location. On inquiry to the prospective tenant, the victim receives a follow up e-mail indicating they will be sent a cheque by the tenant's new employer that will cover the rent, plus the new "tenant's" living expenses (e.g., to purchase furniture). The victim is asked to forward the additional portion to their new "tenant" by Western Union (or similar).

Where the victim posts on a communal website (e.g. Craigslist) that he/she is looking for a roommate to share a rental unit (or is a landlord looking to rent a unit), and the "scammer" poses as an interested party and sends a check to hold the room. The check will originate from overseas. The victim receives the check and desposits it into his/her bank account, and that amount of money will temporarily appear as having been added in. Within a few days the scammer then contacts the victim and advises that he/she cannot move into the rental unit due to an illness. The scammer will even provide what appears to be medical documents indicating this state of ill health. The scammer then asks the victim to immediately wire transfer the money from the check back to him/her. This takes place, and then a few days later the victim finds out from his/her bank that the original check has bounced.

Puppy scam

Much like the other scams detailed here this involves the promise of an item when all the necessary fees have been advanced. Adverts are taken out by someone who is claiming they are the breeder of puppy/s they sold and they are not doing well in their current situation. The owner claims to be looking for someone to adopt them back. They also claim to work as a missionary or for the United Nations. The advance fees in this case being for the purchase of the animal and Customs charges that will never end.

Calls are also made through instant ip relay to unsuspecting callers. The callers will give the victim their email address to email them all details and final price of the puppy. E-mail contents is unknown but due to the confidentiality of the ip-relay system operators cannot disconnect the calls. One theory is that the scammers scam and receive pure bred puppies, breed the puppies and sell them back to US buyers.

Consequences

Monetary loss estimates

Estimates of the total losses due to the scam vary widely. The Snopes website lists the following estimate:

"The Nigerian scam is hugely successful. According to a 1997 newspaper article: 'We have confirmed losses just in the United States of over $100 million in the last 15 months,' said Special Agent James Caldwell, of the Secret Service financial crimes division. 'And that's just the ones we know of. We figure a lot of people don't report them.'"

Although the "success rate" of the scam is hard to gauge, some experienced 419 scammers get one or two interested replies for every thousand messages. It is claimed that an experienced scammer can expect to make several thousand dollars per month.

Ultrascan Advanced Global Investigations, a Netherlands-based firm which has been studying 419 matters since the mid-1990s, has prepared a table quantifying 419 operations by country for 2005 and 2006. These stats are based on Ultrascan's in-house investigations and include, by nation: number of 419 rings; number of 419ers; income of the 419ers (the amount of losses by victims to the 419ers); and additional data. 419 Coalition view is that these stats present a reasonably conservative and realistic look at the extent and magnitude of 419 criminal operations worldwide.

Since 1995, the United States Secret Service has been involved in combating these schemes. The organization will not investigate unless the monetary loss is in excess of fifty thousand US Dollars. However, very few arrests and prosecutions have been made due to the international aspect of this crime.

In 2006, a report by a research group concluded that Nigerian scams cost the UK economy £150 million per year, with the average victim losing £31,000.

Physical harm or death

• Some victims have hired private investigators in Nigeria or have personally travelled to Nigeria, without ever retrieving their money. There are cases of victims being unable to cope with the losses and committing suicide.
• In February 2003, a scam victim from the Czech Republic shot and killed Michael Lekara Wayid, an official at the Nigerian embassy in Prague. [6]
• Leslie Fountain, a senior technician at Anglia Polytechnic University in England, set himself on fire after falling victim to a scam; Fountain died of his injuries.

Kidnapping

• Kensuke Matsumoto, a Japanese national, fled his kidnappers in Durban, South Africa after falling victim to a 419 scheme in 1999 [7].
• Joseph Raca, a former mayor of Northampton, England, was kidnapped by scammers in Johannesburg, South Africa in July 2001. The captors released Raca after they became nervous [8].
• Danut Tetrescu, a Romanian who flew from Bucharest to Johannesburg to meet with con men in the Soweto area of Johannesburg, was kidnapped in 1999 and held for $500,000 [9].

Murder

• 29-year old George Makronalli, a Greek man, was murdered in South Africa after responding to a 419 scam.
• Kjetil Moe, a Norwegian businessman, was reported missing and ultimately killed after a trade with Nigerian scammers in Johannesburg, South Africa (September 1999). [10]
• Mary Winkler is awaiting trial over the shooting of her pastor husband on March 22, 2006, after allegedly being taken for $17,500 in a 419 scam.
• One American was murdered in Nigeria in June 1995 after being lured by a 419 scam.

Arrests

In 2004, fifty-two suspects were arrested in Amsterdam after an extensive raid. An Internet service provider had noticed the increased email traffic. None was jailed or fined, due to lack of evidence. They were released in the week of July 12, 2004. An entirely phony "Nigerian embassy" was also discovered in Amsterdam; another allegedly exists in Bangkok.

The victim becomes a criminal

Victims of the fraud often fall directly into crime by "borrowing" or stealing money to pay the advanced fees, thinking an early payday is imminent.

• One example of this was Robert Andrew Street, a Melbourne based financial adviser, who fleeced his clients for over AU$ 1,000,000 which he sent to the scammers in the hope of receiving USD$65M in return. Eventually the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigated the victim, who had now become a conman himself.
• Another example was a bookkeeper for Michigan law firm Olsman Mueller & James who in 2002 emptied the company bank account of USD$2.1M in expectation of a USD$4.5M payout.
• John W. Worley fell for a Nigerian scam and was convicted of taking money under false pretenses [11].
• Mark Whitacre defrauded Archer Daniels Midland, a food products manufacturer for which he was a division president, embezzling $9 million during the same period of time that he was acting as an informant for the FBI in a price-fixing scheme that ADM was involved in. His illegal activities in trying to procure funds for payment of his supposed Nigerian benefactors cost him his immunity in the price-fixing scandal.

Impeded Nigerian E-mail output

Legitimate Nigerian businesses find that their e-mails increasingly fail to reach their targets, due to people and companies setting their e-mail clients to automatically mark all mail containing the words 'Nigeria' and 'Nigerian' or coming from Nigerian IP addresses as spam, or even delete it out of hand.

Proposed legislation

As a result of the fraud, Nigeria is drafting legislation to make spamming a criminal offence punishable with a fine up to £2,000GBP and three years in jail.

Terms used by 419-scammers

Akwukwo [12], chekere, pepper

Fake check.

Bill

The amount a scammer plans to extract from his victim.

Ego, pepper, lalas, show

Money

Fall mugu (to)

To be fooled, to become victim of advance fee fraud.

Flash of account

Cause the victim's bank account to temporarily show a large credit. This is intended to induce the victim to believe in the deal and send money. The credit gets reversed by the bank when it is discovered that the original check or electronic transfer was fraudulent.

Format

The scheme or script of an advance fee fraud, e.g., the late dictator format (the scammer pretends to be a relative of a dictator, e.g. Maryam Abacha, "Wife" of Sani Abacha), the next of kin format, the lottery format.

Guyman, guy

Scammer engaged in advance fee fraud.

Maga, mugu, mugun, mahi, magha [13], mahee, mayi, mayee

Victim of advance fee fraud. "Mugu" in particular is often used as an insult by scam-baiters.

Modalities

commonly used term for methods of funds transfer; often considered a shibboleth for scam messages due to its infrequency in native Anglophone usage.

May reflect roots in an older French version of the scam; modalités in French just means ways or methods.

Oga

Boss

Owner of the job, Catcher

Scammer who makes the first contact with a victim and then passes him on to another scammer who finishes the job. The latter shares the spoil with the former.

Runs

An (illegal) activity.

Yahoo millionaires [14], yahoo boys [15]

Scammers

Yahoo yahoo

The act of scamming, especially through the use of a Yahoo! mail address.

Media and advance fee fraud

Danny Wallace

In his book, Yes Man, in which for a time he attempted to say 'yes' to every invitation and opportunity, Danny Wallace almost fell for two scams similar to the 419 scam. First, he received an e-mail supposedly from the son of a murdered sultan who wished to seek refuge in the UK. He wanted to forward Wallace his riches and would share them with Wallace when he arrived. Wallace's friend Ian managed to talk him out of it before he went through with it fully, after responding to the e-mail. The second e-mail he received claimed that he had won a lottery in Europe and must go to Holland to claim his winnings. Despite being warned of the risks of going, Wallace went to Holland, although in the end he did not meet the people who claimed to be giving him the money, finding out that one of them was the name of a Dutch supermarket.

To Catch a Con Man

Dateline NBC featured advance fee fraud on the premiere of its investigative journalism show To Catch a Predator. To Catch a Con Man explained a typical advance fee fraud scam and featured scammers being scambaited.

Books

Numerous written works about advance fee fraud or the fight against it have been published. These include:

• 419 Scam, ISBN 0-595-85737-X
• Greetings in Jesus Name! - The Scambait Letters ISBN 1905128088
• Scamorama, ISBN 978-1932857382

Websites

There are few websites that are setup to provide information on how to avoid advance fee fraud or the fight against it:

• No419.com - Nigeria's Business Private Investigator
• Anti-419 website resources

See also

• Scam baiting
• Employment scams
• Phishing
• Spanish Prisoner
• Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) The Nigerian financial authority mandated to investigate against advance fee frauds.
• True believer syndrome

External links

• FTC Consumer Alert on The Nigerian Scam A brief overview about advance fee fraud.
• Ultrascan.nl Dutch 419 research organization.
• A Qualitative Analysis of Advance Fee Fraud E-mail Schemes Article by Holt and Graves in the International Journal of Cyber Criminology.

419 Investigation

• 419 Private Investigation
• 419 Investigation
• no419.com - Nigeria's Business Private Investigator
• EFCC - Nigeria's official anti-fraud agency

Databases

• Artists Against 419. Provides a database of faked bank websites. These websites are used in 419 scams to convince a victim that the promised money are real.
• Crimes of Persuasion Scams, Schemes, Frauds.
• eximscammers.com This nonprofit website is a fraud and scam Complaint Center dedicated to serve as a vehicle to receive, record and publish fraud and scam complaints. The reader can search scammer database inorder to see whether there is a complaint about the potential business partners. The viewer can add the firm that victimized him or her to a scammer database.
• urgentmessage.org The website collects and analyzes 419 opening emails and allows users to view the tangled relations between scam schemes and authors via clickable graphs.
• Scamdex A Searchable, Indexed database of email scams, phishing, lotteries and Advance Fee Fraud (419) scams.
• Nigerian Schemes An collection of Nigerian scheme fraud emails.
• Nigerian Fraud Email Gallery
• 'Nigerian' Email Scams - a large database
• Scambaiter.info German website and forum. Baits and information about Nigeria-Connection. Photos, fake documents and more.
• Nigeria advance fee or 911 scam
• scamalicious.com Unauthorized scam busting and scam email collection site for craigslist.org sellers, landlords, and buyers.
• Database of Advanced Fees Scams
• Fraudwatchers.Org A voluntary, virtually-based organization offering support and guidance to victims of Advance Fee Frauds and Scams

Music and audio files

• I Go Chop Your Dollar, A popular Nigerian music video by singer Nkem Owoh (also known as Osuofia), telling the story of 419 frauds from the point of view of the scammers.
• 419 State of Mind by Mode 9 in the album Pentium IX. The album also features a skit on 419.