How can I report scams to you?
We have received many emails from near-victims who backed out of a fake lottery or other advance fee scam or fraudulent business transaction after they did a search for an email address, name or phone number and came across it on our 419 blacklist. We publish such data to warn potential victims about such scams. The more scammers we can get listed, the more crimes will be prevented. You too can help!
If you've received what looks like a 419 spam (basically, any email from a stranger that promises an unexpected fortune), you're welcome to send us a copy. Please make sure to include the five character string [419] in the subject line of the email (you can follow this with further details, such as
name of the fake lottery or other company, alias or email address of the criminal, phone numbers, etc).
Examples:
Subject: [419] MICROSOFT EMAIL LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL
Subject: [419] james_robin1@hotmail.com
Subject: [419]
We strongly prefer mails that are submitted as an attached email. That way we will receive an exact copy of the mail you received, as an
attachment. We will put that into our database and process it with our spamfilter,
which not only lets us verify it looks like a real 419 mail, it also extracts the 419 sender address automatically and we can find out which email provider the criminals used and other information useful for tracking them. Alternatively, you can use copy and paste using the Scam-O-Matic webform, see further below.
How to report fraud by e-mail using Outlook Express
If you are using Outlook Express, open or select the fraud email, then click
"Message" and "Forward as Attachment". Type our address
<419@419scam.org> into the To: field, use [419] and optional extra information as the subject (see examples above) and click the "Send" button.
How to report fraud by e-mail using Yahoo mail
If you are using Yahoo mail (Classic), open the email, hold down the Control key and click on the "Forward" button. Type our address
<419@419scam.org> into the To: field, use [419] as the subject and click the "Send" button.
How to report fraud by e-mail using Incredimail
- Use File / Save As to save the email somewhere on your hard disk (name doesn't matter).
- Repeat previous step as necessary for multiple emails.
- Create a new mail addressed to 419@419scam.org and attach the file(s) created in the previous steps.
How to report fraud using the "Scam-O-Matic" webform
- Highlight the message body of the suspect mail with your mouse and press Ctrl+C to copy the text into the clipboard.
- Go to the "Scam-O-Matic" webform and paste it there.
- You can also provide the email address from which you received the mail, subject lines or header information.
- If you leave an email address where we can contact you then we can get back to you later if we find more information for you or if we need more information about the scam from you.
Please do not use the normal "Forward" function of your email program, if possible. Please do not paste email contents into Word documents. If you do not know how to forward an email as an attachment or none of this makes any sense to you, use either use the "Scam-O-Matic" webform or the normal "Forward" function. With the latter, please make sure to include the five character string [419] in the message subject. If you do use the "Forward as attachment" function, you should still mark the message subject as [419].
Note: If you forward a 419 scam mail in the body of your email to us (inline forward) without marking the subject then in some cases the mail is indistinguishable by software from a real 419 email. It may get intercepted by our filter because it looks too much like spam from a spammer. You sure don't want that to happen, because in effect you would have accidentally submitted your own email address to the blacklist ;-)
Therefore, submit the mail as an attachment, or to the webform or mark the subject and you'll be safe!
You should also report 419 scam addresses to the abuse-department of the email provider they used. In addition, you can contact law enforcement or appropriate government institutions in your country. See the following for more details:
How can I help you gather evidence?
If you receive a fraudulent "lottery winning notification" or "business proposal" (i.e. any offer of easy money as described on our website), you can help us gather evidence by "pinging" (see definition) the scammers and forwarding the response to us. This wastes the scammers time and helps us to track them. Follow these steps carefully:
- Create a Yahoo email account using an assumed name (you only need to do this once for multiple scam emails you receive). Either the main Yahoo.com website or national variants (yahoo.co.uk, yahoo.ca, yahoo.fr, yahoo.de) are fine. You should probably turn off the Yahoo spamfilter. Not all webmail services are suitable (e.g. Hotmail is not), but Yahoo is perfect for this.
- Open Yahoo! Mail, select "Compose" and paste the body of the scam email into the new email. Paste the email address from either the body of the message ("claims agent", "confidential private email address", etc.) or from the sender address, if there no explicit reply address, into the "To:" field.
- Add a suitable subject line (this can be copied from the original scam email, maybe with a "Re: " prefix). Then add some brief text at the beginning to make this look like a "real" response, but don't overplay it. Examples (please vary these and use your imagination):
- "Hello, I'd like to claim my lottery prize, see message below"
- "This business proposal sounds interesting. Please send me more information!"
- "Is this a joke or is it real?"
- "how soon can i get this money? i could really do with it !!!"
- "I RECEIVED THIS MAIL. WHAT DO I NEED TO DO ???"
Then click "Send".
- You should get a reply within 24-72 hours, often from a different email address.
Open that reply from the scammer and forward it to us (we only need the scammer's reply, NOT your email to the scammer):
- Mark an identifying portion of the mail, such as the lottery name or alias of the scammer and copy it to the clipboard.
- Hold down the control key while clicking the "Forward" button.
- Change the subject to the five characters [419] followed by a space and then paste the lottery name or alias of the scammer from the clipboard (anything after [419] is optional).
- Address the email to 419@419scam.org (it's quickest if you add this address to the Yahoo address book.
- Click "Send".
You will find that the scambaiting account soon starts attracting new 419 spam, i.e. initial spam messages, not just replies you requested. You can also forward those to us.