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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 message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT <account_service_dept099@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:10:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Dear Customer,
This is an Official alert to inform all Yahoo Account User:
We regret to announce to you that with the rate at which we have newly
registered members everyday, our data base is getting congested and now we
have decided to under go deactivation of all unused account and some other
of our account we find error on for both premium and free accounts.
Every account owner that receives this message has encountered this error
and will have to update his/her account with the requested information
below. To update
CLICK HERE TO UPDATE AND SECURE YOUR YAHOO ACCOUNT
WARNING: Account owner that receives this message and refuses to update
his/her account within the next 48Hours will be terminated from the
Administrator's dept.
Thank you for being a loyal Yahoo! Mail user.
We hope you enjoy the newest version of Yahoo! Mail.
David McDowell
Senior Director
Yahoo! Mail Product Management
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Anti-fraud resources:
