Most 419 letters/scams uses the English language but have a lot of grammar lapses. Also, these scammers prefer to use
italics in their letter.
Spammers send spam to make money. "419" scammers send spam to defraud people. To make as much money as possible, they hit as many email addresses as possible. If you received "419" spam or any other type of spam, it usually means a) your email address can be found on a website (try googling for it!) and b) that you are not using an effective spam filter.
* Most email addresses targetted by spammers are listed as contact addresses on a website, in a link such as this one. Spammers use special address harvesting software to search websites for email addresses and for links. Harvesting addresses off websites is actually illegal under US Federal Law. The software adds all addresses to a file and then repeats the process for all pages mentioned in links. The initial page for the search is usually found via a search engine, in order to start off with pages that contain many addresses. Guestbooks are a prime target for address harvesters.
* Effective spam filters, such as jwSpamSpy, which we use to track domains and emails addresses that identify spam, can recognize "419" scam emails by looking for typical phrases, by xxxxxyzing sender addresses and by looking at source addresses in message headers. They can stop scam emails without harming legitimate mail.
Once your address has become public knowledge, it's impossible to put the cat back into the bag. You either need to change email addresses (which is about as painful as changing phone numbers), or you need to use an effective filter. If you have found our website through a search for a name, email address or telephone number contained in a 419 scam that you have received, chances are you would never have seen that scam email if you'd been using our spam filter.
credits to:
http://www.419scam.org/419faq.htm
