Nigerian Spam » Difference Between Spam mails

Fraud 419 spam emails differ from normal spam

Emails for this type of 419 scam fraud differ from normal spam in several ways:

Most normal spam uses bogus sender addresses. For 419 scams, existing mailboxes at legitimate mail providers are used.

Virtually no effort is made to hide the source of the spam of 419 fraud email through technical means. These spammers rely on the lack of efforts by the respective providers to stop their abusing the service.

This is untypical for common spam (Viagra, penis enlargement, etc.), which are often routed through China, South Korea, Brazil or Russia or are sent from hijacked servers (e.g. broadband hosts infected with stealth ware) in United States.

The relative absence of common cloaking techniques on the sender side means that 419 spam can only be distinguished from legitimate email from Africa or Europe by analyzing the text of the message, looking for typical phrases and features.

Often the 419 scam include phone numbers in the fraud email, especially in fake lottery scams. Typically these phone numbers are in the Netherlands or in Nigeria. 419 scammers in the Netherlands tend to use mobile phones with phone cards.

Country code 31 (0031 or +31) is the international country dialing code for the Netherlands. I believe that all Dutch area codes starting with the digit 6 are mobile phone numbers (e.g. 0031-630-835-750, -630-354-500).

Nigerian 419-numbers are both fixed line and mobile numbers (e.g. 234 8043281627, +234 1 4717291). The scammers there are part of or closely connected to the political and economical elite of the country. Country code 234 (00234 or +234) is the international country dialer for Nigeria.