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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: Alex Sidney <alexsidney12@att.net>
Reply-To: alexsidney12@rocketmail.com
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:10:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: GREETINGS
Dear
I am captain Alex Sidney, US troop to Iraq, Our mission is to help beef up terrorist targeted.
As am writing to you now I have the sum of 16.2 million USD which my
Men discovered on raiding here, which were loaded in a box also, were suspected to be an arms weapon without knowing is money. Now I deposited this box with Red Cross agent, without explained the contain of the box to them. As well as informing them that we are searching for the owner of this box. Please received this box as your own and 30% of this money will be for your and 70% for me. If you’re interested I will send this box through diplomatic service to your door step.
Regards
Capt Alex Sidney
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Anti-fraud resources:
