Nigerian Spam » 419 Scam FAQ
419 Scam Frequently Asked Questions
What is this 419
Scam FAQ about?
This collection of frequently asked questions (FAQ) answers
the questions about the Advance Fee Fraud ("419 scam")
(419 Scammer”). The scam is named the section of the
Nigerian penal code dealing with fraud.
What are tactics used by 419
Scam senders schemes?
An individual or any company receives a letter or fax from
an alleged "official" representing any foreign
government or agency.
An offer available to transfer millions of dollars in "over
invoiced contract" funds into your bank account.
You could encourage traveling overseas to complete the transaction.
You might be requested to provide blank company letterhead
forms, banking account information, and telephone and fax
numbers.
You receive many documents with official looking stamps,
seals and company logo testifying Scammers authenticity
of the proposal.
Eventually you must provide up-front or advance fees fraud
for various taxes, attorney fees, and transaction fees or
try to bribe.
Other forms of 4-1-9 schemes include: c.o.d. of goods and
services, real estate ventures, purchases of crude oil at
less prices, beneficiary of a will, and recipient of an
award or paper currency conversion.
How do I know if an email is
a 419 spam?
The general rule of thumb is, if it sounds too attractive
to be true, it probably is. There is a number of what we
call "red flags", markers, which show up in typical
419
scam emails, such as certain phrases or few ways of
doing things. You can also learn to spot these by yourself.
You can check any type of suspicious 419 scam email by posting
it in the fraudwatchers.org forum where anti-fraud experts
would be ready to give your their advice (look for a section
called "419 Scam or Not”).
How does these 419 spam mailers
get my name/e-mail address?
The key thing to understand here is that, in spite of the
cool nature of this 419 fraud, the way in which it is spread
is quite familiar; this is basically a more strong form
of "spam", or unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE).
The messages are mass mailed in precisely the same way as
the more ordinary "XXX", "Toner Supplies"
and "Make Money Fast" junk e-mails, which appear
in your inbox on an everyday basis. All they want is to
get a 419 scam message into someone's inbox is a valid e-mail
address, and they also collect it same way that other 419
spam senders do: they buy the lists collected by other
spammers, they harvest addresses themselves from Usenet
postings, they start to rub online directories, and sometimes
they can even find a mail host and just try every possible
8-character email address for that host. There are many
other possible ways for them to collect e-mail addresses,
and no matter how enthusiastically you limit who give you
your address to, chances are that finally it would make
it onto somebody's mass mailing list.
Do the 419 scam mailers know
who I am, or any other information about me?
There is very little probability that they know any of your
personal information, despite the pledge that they "know
you to be a person of integrity" and "discreteness".
They don't know you any more than they know the millions,
perhaps billions - of other people around the world that
they try to trick. To them, all you are is an email address
that didn't bounce.
Who are the people who are sending
these 419 scam messages?
The agreement among government and the law enforcement officials
around the world, with information security experts is that
despite the many countries that 419 scam messages appear
to be originate from, the source is, actually, in Nigeria,
though Amsterdam, in the Netherlands shows to be a center
of action in few recent years as well. Although the Nigerian
government claims to be cracking down on them, it is usually
believed that they are actually protecting these 419 scammers;
in fact, many believe that Nigerian government officials
are also scammers. Whether this is true or not, it has been
supposed that the reason the Nigerian government allows
the 419 scam to continue is that it is predictable to be
the third or fourth largest source of revenue for the Nigerian
economy.
You're kidding - you mean people
actually fall for this fraud spams?
You bet. May be you do not know, this has been going on
for more than 20 years - if go fishing is good, you don't
change the bait you're using. Not only are there many existing
documented cases of people who have had their fraud by bank
accounts drained by 419 scam senders, there are also cases
of people who have been bait into traveling to Nigeria and
entering the country without any passport that puts them
at the complete pity of the spam senders, and some law enforcement
agencies report that some of these people did not leave
their country alive.
What are the main categories these 419 spam
fraud business proposals falls?
Disbursement
of money from wills
Purchase
of real estate
Contract
fraud
Conversion
of hard currency
Transfer
of funds from over account contracts
Sale of
crude oil at less market prices
Fund transfer
scam
Why 419 Spammer's are increasing
in recent years?
Several reasons had been submitted why Nigerian Advance
Fee Fraud (419 scam) has undergone a very dramatic increase
in recent years. The explanations are as diverse as the
above types of schemes. The Nigerian Government blames the
growing problem on mass job loss, extended family systems,
a get rich quick condition, and, very particularly, the
greed of foreigners. Indications are that Advance Fee Fraud
419 Scam grosses hundreds of millions of dollars yearly
and the losses are continuing to rise. In all possibility,
there are victims who do not report their losses to authorities
due to also fear or embarrassment.
How can I help fight and protect
others from 419 scam?
Since you've discovered this website, you now know that
a suspicious email you received could be a 419 scam. Many
others do not know and are still actually at risk. Here
is how you could help:
Report
spam: Report
any 419 spam to the web mail provider used to send the
spam or may be to receive replies. For example, if the mail
had been originated from mrjephills6@tiscali.co.uk or if
the address is also listed as a person to contact then write
to abuse@tiscali.co.uk, quoting the full text and story
of the mail including message headers (in Outlook Express
you get the full message source via Ctrl+F3; use the option
of cut paste to insert that into your email).
In particul report any contact addresses
are mentioned in the body of the spam mail itself, such
as "claims agents" of fake lotteries. These are
the most important mailboxes 419 scammers use. The sooner
we get them blackout, the fewer victims there would be.
Inform
Others: Talk about this 419 scam to your
family and also to your colleagues at work.
Pinging:
Contact the 419 scam senders from a disposable Yahoo account
to get them to reply, then forward the respond as proof
to us.
Scam
Baiting: You could also help by collecting
evidence against scam mails and try to waste their time
by contacting them from a web mail account (Warning: Do
not use your usual email account to do this!). For example,
you need to create an account at Yahoo.com (link) and then
paste the received spam email into a message you compose,
as if you had received the spam in your Yahoo account. Once
you receive a reply, just forward a copy of the reply from
the scammers as an external attachment to 419@419scam.org.
Receiving such replies from "claims agents", "barristers"
and "securities companies" helps us to trace the
true location from which the scammers send their emails.
If you interested wasting scammers' time, visit http://www.scambaits.com
and read their advice on the art of scam
baiting.
Support
Our Efforts: Thousands of people have been
alerted to this scam through our website. They used a search
engine and found an email address, a name or a telephone
number from a 419 email listed by us. Compiling and publishing
such information to educate people like you and your family
is a time-consuming process for us. Unlike the criminals
we take on, we don't make any money from the time we spend.
If you appreciate what we are doing and would like to support
our efforts, please make a donation (Pay pal or credit card
- $10, $20 or any amount!) to us. Thank you!
Report
To The Police: You can report 419 spams
to law enforcement in your own country that is the local
police or (in the US) the US Secret Service.
Spam
Traps: If you own a website you could embed
email addresses on pages on your site so they are found
by address cropping software or spammers.
Sabotage:
Many 419 fraud (Scammers) emails give contact phone numbers.
Carefully check the local time before you make any calls,
as who might want to be woken up at 3AM? If the number begins
with +44 70 or +234 80 then you need to check the local
time in Lagos, if the number starts with +31 6 or +31 4
checks the local time in Amsterdam or Madrid. Some people
reply to 419 spam emails and also ask the scam senders to
call them back, giving them phone numbers of other 419 scammers
to call. Some people mail huge files such as digital snaps
to the contact addresses listed in the emails. This could
fill up their mailboxes pretty quickly, preventing emails
by potential sufferers from reaching the scam mailers.
Muguito
/ Mugu Marauder: Most fake bank websites
set up by criminals would be blackout by the webmaster when
contacted. Sites, which stay up get targeted by Muguito
/ the Mugu Marauder, software, which you could run from
your broadband connection to kill fake banks. If you have
flat rate admission without bandwidth cap you could leave
it running over night to rob 419 fraud sites of bandwidth.
Since when has this 419 scam
been around?
Current 419 Scam (Nigerian fraud) emails involving "Nigeria
fraud (Scammers)" and fake lotteries track back to
the actual idea known as the "Spanish prisoner scam"
that goes back to before 1914 Modern variants of the 419
scam started circulating from Nigeria by way of fax and
through postal mail in the 1980s and meshed quite a few,
often wealthy victims worldwide during the 1990s. The 419
scam crossed over into email in the late 1990s.
What is a "mugu"?
The code word "mugu" is used by junior 419 scam
who use to collect addresses for 419 scams from website
called guestbooks. These so called "guy men" use
the term in non-sensical entries to blot guestbooks by now
harvested for spamming. The idea is to prevent 419 scam
from offering rival but equally doubtful "BUSINESS
PROPOSALS" to the same victims (that might alert them
to the fact that both proposals are 419 scams). Email addresses
given in such guestbook, or at least all addresses in entries
posted before the "mugu" posting are actually
supposed to be off-limits to other scams. Stepping onto
another scammer's grass is one of the gravest sins amongst
419 scammers. Scam baiters know that and sometimes play
evil games on them.
Typical names
"Mugu", "Guymen", "Mugu Lome Togo"
Typical email addresses:
"mugu@mugu.com" "mugu@yahoo.com"
Typical message bodies:
Mugu don come, Mugu keep offffffffffffffffffffffffffff,
KKKKKKEEEEEEEPPPP OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF, MUGU@MUGU.COM,
MUGU@MUGU.COM, MUGU@MUGU.COM, MUGU@MUGU.COM
If you already have a guestbook on
your site, be sure that email addresses are not displayed
to other visitors, so that your visitors are spared "419
scams" and other spam. If you have log files in guestbook
postings, do track the IP addresses used for "mugu"
postings and block them in the access file of your website
if they happen to be from Nigeria.
