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joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam
The so-called "419" scam is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money, such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc.
Victims never receive this non-existent fortune but are tricked into sending their money to the criminals, who remain anonymous. They hide their real identity and location by using fake names and fake postal addresses as well as communicating via anonymous free email accounts and mobile phones.
Keep in mind that scammers DO NOT use their real names when defrauding people.
The criminals either abuse names of real people or companies or invent names or addresses.
Any real people or companies mentioned below have NO CONNECTION to the scammers!
Read more about such scams here or in our 419 FAQ. Use the Scam-O-Matic to verify suspect emails.
Click here to report a problem with this page.
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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
- They don't notify winners by email.
- You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
- They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
- They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
- They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
- They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
- They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
- This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
- +447031907218 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
- This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- revniculainton1@hotmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "YAHOO WINDOWS LIVE Inc" <onlineaward2@mchsi.com>
Reply-To: revniculainton1@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:15:49 +0000
Subject: DETAILS REQUIRED FOR CLAIM
Yahoo Awards Center
124 Stockport Road, Longsight, Manchester M60 2DB-Unite=
d Kingdom.
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of Seven Hundred and =
Fifty Thousand Great Britain Pounds (GBP750,000) for the month of December =
2008 Prize promotion which is organized by YAHOO AWARDS & WINDOWS LIVE.
Stated below are your identification numbers:
BATCH NUMBER: MFI/06/APA-43658
REFERENCE NUMBER: 2007234522
PIN: 1207
You are requested to contact our co-ordinator in Manchester and send your w=
inning identification numbers to him:
Co-ordinator's Name: Rev.Niculai Antony
E-Mail: revniculainton1@hotmail.com,revniculainton02@live.com=20=20=20=20
Call:+44-703 1907 218 OR +44-70359-55500
You are advised to send the following information to our co-ordinator to fa=
cilitate the release of your fund to you.
Full name, Country, Contact Address,Telephone Number,fax Number,Marital Sta=
tus, Occupation, Sex,Date of Birth/Age.
Yours in service,
Mrs. Helen Richardson
Anti-fraud resources: