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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.
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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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 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.
- mrfred_cole@yahoo.com.cn (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: (sent from abused email account)
Reply-To: mrfred_cole@yahoo.com.cn
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2010 23:29:55 +0700 (ICT)
Subject: Britain Pounds
--
mrfred_cole@yahoo.com.cn
Microsoft Award
Team 1 Craven Park, Harlesden London NW10,United
Kingdom. Ref: BTD/976/06 Batch: 401978 Attn: Lucky
Winner,
You email address has won for you £1,000
000.00 (One Million Great Britain Pounds)from MICROSOFT
AWARD PROMO INTERNATIONAL.withTD/968/07 Batch: 409978E,mail
Draw held April 06th 2010. Please fill the following and
contact your claims agent.Dr.Gary Stover.via Email with
:mrfred.cole@live.com
PAYMENT RELEASE ORDER FORM Your
Full
Names____________ Country___________________ Occupation_________________ Your
Age__________________ Your sex__________________ Phone
Number______________ Ticket Numbers____________ Batch
Number______________ Lucky Numbers_____________
We
wish you the best of luck.Thank you for being part of
our promotional award program and commemorative Anniversary
Draws.
Mr.FRED COLE Email:mrfred.cole@live.com
Microsoft Promotion Award Team Head Winning Claims Dept
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