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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "dear sir/madam" (a standard Nigerian greeting phrase)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Donald Brooklyn" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <donaldbrooklynus@yahoo.co.jp>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 20:21:22 -0500
Subject: RE: JOB EMPLOYMENT....!
Dear Sir/madam,
we write to introduce our parent Company Bobinados (http://bobinadososes.com) involved in the design and production of bobbins and solenoids for electromagnetic applications.
We have a wide variety of Customers across the United States that use our applications as major Components in various appliances.
Due to the various wire costs associated with fund transfer between Countries coupled with the fact that we are not fully operational in the United States, we would like to reach out to you today as a work at home scheme, whereby you can serve as an intermediary between us and our U.S. based customers.
Your effort will usually be rewarded in form of our usual standard commission per transaction.
You do not need to invest any amount of money for this process and it is 100% legitimate.
In summary it involves our Customers sending you funds, after which you remove your commission and then wire the balance directly to us.
This saves our Company a lot of money and time as we can release the products whenever you confirm receipt of funds in your account.
Please signify your interest and I'll update you on the next requirement.
Thanks for your time
Donald Brooklyn.
Area Sales Manager.
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Anti-fraud resources:
