What is the 419 scam?

Answer 1

419 refers to the section of Nigerian law that deals with acquiring property by fraud. The scam is simply a redo of the old Spanish Prisoner one that has been around for a few hundred years.

In this 419 scam/Spanish Prisoner scam, someone will tell you of a way to get an awful lot of money, and all you have to do is send some money first.

In the original Spanish Prisoner scam, one was told that if you sent money to bribe a prison guard, the guard would let the wealthy prisoner out who would then pay you back ten fold.

In the latest, you get an email telling you that someone is the son of a prince or businessman and needs to move several million dollars out of the nation. And he needs to use your bank account to do it. If you let him (he says) he'll let you keep ten percent of the millions as your fee.

At this point - and proving that you can't con an honest man - the "victim" thinks, "Hey, once it's in my account I can keep the whole amount!". He then emails back his willingness to "help".

Now he gets detailed instructions as to how he'll have to send his bank information, and also wire a small fee to cover some administrative costs. The fee will probably be anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000, whatever the scammer thinks the "victim" can come up with. If he's dumb enough to send the money, then he'll get another email saying there was some unanticipated problem and that another $1,000 or $10,000 is needed.

Fearful of losing what he already has in it, the "victim" will send more and more, but at no point will any millions be wired into his account.