|
|
joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
|
|
"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.
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 uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- 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.
- +8613250322917 (China, prepaid mobile phone)
- 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.
- agricultural@asia.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "Mr. Frank brow" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <agricultural@asia.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:27:53 +0800
Subject: Chinese/ Uk Financial Assistance:
Chinese/ Uk Financial Assistance:
Chinese government/ Uk has mapped out financial assistance for all foreign traders/ factory/ industries/ companies/ Real Estate Agency/ Small Business Enterprises and some private individuals all over the world to assistance them in this financial crisis specially business man and woman.
Your e-mail address attached to ticket drew the winning number: B6544 23685478, which subsequently won you the total sum of US$950,000.00,from total amount of 12b Dollars that will be given to qualified business man and woman.
All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Website through computer draw system and extracted from over 300, 000, 00 companies and individual emails address. respond for urgent process to contiune on your payment.
Yours truly,
Mr. Felix T. Chang (President)
Tel+8613250322917
Mr. Frank brow (Manager)
Tell+ 448447741685
Email: agricultural@asia.com
|
Anti-fraud resources:
