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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "claim agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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.
- +447031930118 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
- 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.
- jo_williams06@yahoo.co.uk (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: ukcashout ukcashout <ukcashout@ukcashout.orangehome.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 06:32:42 +0100 (CET)
Subject: You have won a cash prize.
UK-NATIONAL LOTTERY,
N15 3SR,London
Tel:+44 7031930118
Fax:+44 08700685860
Dear Winner,
This is to notify you of your winning of our internet lotto draw.
All email addresses were randomly selected from a batch of 60,000,000
emails address from the internet and yours emerged as one of the
winning email addresses.
Consequently,you have therefore won yourself the sum of
5,000,000.00 ( 5million pounds) only.
Your winning email ticket and lotto code number respectively are:
(1) email ticket number: FL754/22/76
(2) lotto code number: FL09622SP
Please contact the underlisted claim agent as soon as possible for
the immediate release of your winnings.
CONTACT: Claims agent
Mr. John Williams
Email Addres: jo_williams06@yahoo.co.uk
Congratulations.
Sincerely,
Wolfgang Hinch
Promotions Director,
The UK Lotto Company.
Anti-fraud resources:
