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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: "Chief Nana Kofi" <gold@tvnetwork.hu>
Reply-To: n-kofi1@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:09:41 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Gold For Sale !!!
Good Day Sir/Madam:
I am Chief Nana kofi from Ashanti Kingdom Royal Family Ghana Gold Coast as
you may know we are local gold miners in the village so we have 230kg of
gold dust in the village for sale with us now that is why i contacted you
if you will buy or you can be our partner whom can get us a trust buyers
as our partner and you will have your percentage.
So we hope to work with you and meet with you face to face.
Best regards,
Chief Nana Kofi From Royal Family Ashanti Kingdom Gold Coast Ghana.
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Anti-fraud resources:
