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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 fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "yahoo/msn lottery inc" (no such lottery exists)
- "yahoo/msn lottery" (no such lottery exists)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "million united states dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- 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.
- +31647205788 (Netherlands, prepaid mobile phone)
- 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.
- postpaymentbv@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "EVENT PROMOTER" <eventproconsult@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:07:02 -0500
Subject: URGENT CLAIMS
Attn: Lucky Winner,
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of One Million United
States
Dollars ($1,000.000.00) for the month of JANUARY 2008. The lottery
promotion
which is organized by YAHOO/MSN LOTTERY INC &WINDOWS LIVE is for
email accounts. In view of the above, the winning was attached to your
email
address; hence it is not a ticketed lottery. You are to contact the events
manager with the following.
Batch number: LYM09102UM
Ref. number: NF35447LS
Winning number: 03280988
Kindly send the under-listed data to the payment events manager.
1. Full name
2. Contact Address
3. Age:
4. Telephone Number
5. Fax Number
6. Sex
7. Occupation
8. Nationality
PAYMENT EVENTS MANAGER CONTACT:
Name: TONY ADAMS
Tel: +31 647 205 788
Fax: +31 847 118 577
E-mail: postpaymentbv@gmail.com
Thanks.
Promoter
Anti-fraud resources:
