History Main / FourOneNineScam

* ''Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles'': Subverted in ''The Autobiography''; when a message from a Nigerian prince shows up in Penny’s email inbox. Penny deletes it, but it turns out the offer is genuine and she misses out on a big payday.

* An installment of ''WebAnimation/TheCyanideAndHappinessShow'', "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3zjRcMnRNY Junk Mail]]", runs with the comedic premise of "what if all the crappy spam email you ignore was real?" After the main character starts actually answering these emails, and [[GagPenis quadrupled the length of his penis]] and gotten incredibly rich from working home, he naturally gets one of these emails, and moments later is partying with a Nigerian man in royal regalia.

* Referenced in the ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' [[PublicServiceAnnouncement PSA]] "Real Life vs. The Internet", comparing getting mail from a mailbox vs. e-mail:
-->'''Simmons:''' Pardon me, my friend, but I am Nigerian royalty, and I need you to send me money. Please ignore the fact that I can not spell "Nigerian" or "royalty".

The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam advance fee fraud]], known colloquially as the '''419 scam''', is a form of Internet fraud commonly associated with UsefulNotes/{{Nigeria}} (hence its alternative name, the Nigerian scam). The character is contacted by someone who claims (in suspiciously shaky English) to have a large sum of money which is rightfully his but which he cannot access for various reasons (sealed account, locked trust fund, etc.), and he needs the mark's help to be able to access it. If he helps out, he'll get a substantial share of the money, which could be millions of dollars. To do this, the scammer typically needs the mark's own bank account to help him transfer the money, and he needs some of the mark's own money in advance to help authorize the transfer, bribe officials, or do anything else the scammer can think of. But the money doesn't exist; once the scammer gets the mark's money or access to his bank account, he cuts off all contact. It's basically the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner Spanish Prisoner]]" scam for the Internet age.

* The game ''VisualNovel/RePrinceOfNigeria'' is mainly about a girl who does not get that she is being scammed and
ends up falling in love with this supposed "Prince", played for laughs. In fact, from the get-go she doesn't care one iota about the money and is only interested in pursuing romance with this supposed prince.

* The song by MCFrontalot in the page quote is about someone who's a little too eager to get a 419 email. See also [[http://frontalot.com/index.php/content.php?page=lyrics&lyricid=19 here]].

* In one episode of ''Blog/TextsFromSuperheroes'', [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]] [[http://textsfromsuperheroes.com/post/178805902427/prince falls for one.]]

* Ratbert fell for one in a ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' strip. Of course, since the banking information he provided was "My bank is a tube sock that fell behind the dryer", the man on the other end of the scheme couldn't steal any money from him.

* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Prendrick's Planetary Parlour", when the station house gets a Prendrick Portal, which is basically an Edwardian e-mail and chatroom system, Inspector Brakenreid almost falls for this, until Prendrick points out that the sending portal is in ''Niagra'', not Nigeria.

* The game ''VisualNovel/RePrinceOfNigeria'' is mainly about a girl who does not get that she is being scammed and even ends up falling in love with this supposed "Prince", played for laughs. In fact, from the get-go she doesn't care one iota about the money and is only interested in pursuing romance with this supposed prince.

** A completely separate "Nigerian Prince" scam tried to pin everything on [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed totally-not-Steve-Irwin]]. Fortunately, Jane Goodall was able to prove in court that not only was he not king of Nigeria, but Nigeria is a republic with no royal family.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' has the Ponzi Puzzle Sweepstakes, which is an advance fee fraud variant despite the name. Lured with an enormous (alleged) payout, contestants are given ever-harder puzzles in exchange for ever-increasing entry fees at each level. Doug finally gives up after seeing an entire cart of entries (at a level that sounded really really exclusive and close to the end) at the post office.

* The first ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' feature film, ''Bender's Big Score'', centers on a group of scammers who con the Planet Express business and then use that as a base to scam the whole of Earth. [[OnlySaneMan Hermes]] is onto them from the start, but just about every other character falls for it at least once. Professor Farnsworth catches on that the crew is being scammed... then falls for a claim he won the Spanish National Lottery and is tricked into signing over his company. Weirdly, Dr. Zoidberg claims halfway through the film that he actually ''did'' get the money. Eventually [[spoiler:the scammers are defeated by Bender, who claims he's been working the long con all along]].

* An ad for the drink Snapple (known for putting various LittleKnownFacts on the bottom of their bottle caps) had a group of 19th century receiving a Nigerian prince message via telegraph and celebrating their good fortune. The commercial then cuts to a modern day man reading the fact "The first spam message was sent via telegram in 1864" before drinking his Snapple.

* In ''Literature/OurDumbWorld'', the first page on Nigeria is taken up by a scam letter. A sidebar illustrates the educational system which teaches Nigerians how to send mass e-mail in the "Computers 419" course.

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' turned this into a multi-level MuggingTheMonster. Some gangsters tried to pull this on Leon Tao. However, since he's a very skilled forensic accountant, he was able to steal from them. They were unamused and showed up to kill him, and to his immense surprise were actually Nigerian. Unfortunately for them, he's a ([[ButtMonkey recurring number]]) on Team Machine, so Reese shows up to save him.

* Referenced in the ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' [[PublicServiceAnnouncement PSA]] "Real Life vs. The Internet", comparing getting mail from a mailbox vs. e-mail:

[[folder:Film]]

* The anthology comic ''ComicBook/TheEternalSmile'' features this in the story "Urgent Request".

* In one ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' strip, Roger warns Andy to not respond to an email from a Nigerian widow offering 10 million for 500$...because he's currently waiting on 20 million from a Ugandan for 350$.

* Manages to reach ''Equestria'' in ''[[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/109516/dear-friend Dear Friend]]'', within the [[Fanfic/TriptychContinuum Triptych Continuum]]. Spike fires off a series of ersatz scrolls after ingesting some "griffon-made canned lunch meat", one of which is clearly based on a classic 419. It involves the previously-unsuspected son of Sombra, twenty million bits deposited in Ponyville, and a request to help free the money so it can be used for retaking the homeland after the actions of the maniacal Preencess Celestia and the knownownown insane killer unicorn, Twilight Sparkle. (The scroll is filled with similar errors, including "horsepital" and "proponysal".) And just to top it off, it's signed "Sucker Bet".

The advance fee fraud, known colloquially as the '''419 scam''', is a form of Internet fraud commonly associated with UsefulNotes/{{Nigeria}} (hence its alternative name, the Nigerian scam). The character is contacted by someone who claims (in suspiciously shaky English) to have a large sum of money which is rightfully his but which he cannot access for various reasons (sealed account, locked trust fund, etc.), and he needs the mark's help to be able to access it. If he helps out, he'll get a substantial share of the money, which could be millions of dollars. To do this, the scammer typically needs the mark's own bank account to help him transfer the money, and he needs some of the mark's own money in advance to help authorize the transfer, bribe officials, or do anything else the scammer can think of. But the money doesn't exist; once the scammer gets the mark's money or access to his bank account, he cuts off all contact. It's basically the "Spanish Prisoner" scam for the Internet age.

* In the episode "Cherry Bomb" of ''WebVideo/FriendshipIsWitchcraft'', Applejack goes out of town to retrieve two free iPod Nanos offered through a popup window. As her train is leaving, Pinkie reminds her to "say hi to the Nigerian prince." As everypony turns to her in confusion, she says, "What? He owes me money."

* {{Subverted}} in the WebVideo/RealTimeFandub of ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4''. After Peter Parker receives a note from Otto Octavius to check his e-mail, Otto says that he got an e-mail from a Nigerian prince who'll offer him $10,000. The offer turns out to be legitimate, as Peter uses the money to upgrade his Spider-Man suit in the next scene.

As a trope, though, it's not usually used as a way to drive the overall plot like the Spanish Prisoner scam is; instead, it usually goes to show how stupid or gullible a character is for falling for it. The subversion would thus take the form of the money being real and the other characters being the fools for being too cynical to help out a poor Nigerian prince. A particularly clever character might become a "scambaiter", who pretends to fall for the scam and strings the scammer along until he gets him into a humiliating or compromising situation.