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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 fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
- They don't notify winners by email.
- You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
- They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
- They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
- They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
- They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
- They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
- This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
- This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- revpaul-denis-mill@hotmail.co.uk (Hotmail, United Kingdom; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: Milli Piyango <nonsolzy@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 12:15:32 +0100
Subject: Attention
Dear Sir,
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Milli Piyango e-mail
weekly sweepstakes lottery held on Saturday 3rd January 2015 in Turkey.
Your e-mail address with ticket number: 56188 with Serial number 02098
matched our lucky numbers: 9-10-38-40-46-48. This is a reward program for
the patronage of internet services and all email addresses entered for this
promotional draws were randomly selected from an internet resource database
of registered software and domain users.
You have therefore been approved to claim a total prize sum of 820,000 USD
in cash credited to file NIG/9023118308/03. Coincidentally, this file falls
within our African booklet, and to file for your claim please contact our
African payment agent: our email was found from World Network Base in
connection with the United States Information Network Online (U.S.I.N.O)
which is affiliated with the internet. And you were selected as the winner
of the 2015 MILLI PIYANGO LOTTERY FREE DRAW.
Contact person: Rev Paul Denis
Email:revpaul-denis-mill@hotmail.co.uk
Telephone: +234 803 8233 607
Your prize money would be processed and released to you as soon as you
contact this payment office.
Congratulations once more from all members and staff of this program.
Sincerely,
Greg Williams
+44 -703-592-8276
LONDON - UK OFFICE
http://mpi.gov.tr/index.html
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