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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:
- 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 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Customer care Support" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <fmfgov11@fastmail.fm>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:50:19 +0200
Subject: TERMINATION OF YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT
Dear Customer
TERMINATION OF YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT
We are currently carrying out an upgrade on our system due to the fact that it has come to our notice that one or more of our subscribers are introducing a very strong virus into our system and it is affecting our network.
We are trying to find out the specific person.
For this reason all subscribers are to provide their USER NAME AND PASSWORD for us to verify and have them cleared against this virus.
Failure to comply will lead to the termination of your Account in the next 48 hours.
Information to send;
EMAIL ADDRESS:
USERNAME:
PASSWORD:
Hoping to serve you better.
Sincerely,
Customer care Support
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This is an Administrative Message from Customer care server.
It is not spam. From time to time,Customer care will send you such messages in order to communicate important information about your subscription.
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Anti-fraud resources: