How do 419 scams work?
A scammer will send a copy of the same email to tens of thousands of email addresses. Most of them are filtered out by spam filters or are deleted by people who see them for what they really are. A small number of the scam emails (about 1 in every few thousand) are read by naive people who fall victim to them. The content of the scam emails depends on the type of scam the scammer is attempting. There are many types of 419 scams. Some of the more popular types involve promises of millions of dollars. When victims respond to the email – they are told that a comparatively small fee (usually a few thousand dollars) is required to collect the much larger sum. If the victim pays the fee – they are sent another email informing them that there is yet another fee that needs to be paid. If they pay that fee – yet another fee appears. And so on… This pattern repeats its self until the victim realizes that it’s a scam or he runs out of money.
