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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:
- "million pounds" (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)
- "million british pounds" (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)
- ",000,000" (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)
- "00,000.00" (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)
- "(ecowas)" (the name of a person or institution often appearing in 419 scams)
- 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.
- +447045725417 (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.
- undp_claimsdept107@hotmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: undp097@comcast.net (undp@info.org)
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:37:36 +0000
Subject: Dear Award Beneficiary
UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Corporate Headquarters,
91 Station Road,
UBL LT7
United Kingdom.
The UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of DEVELOPMENT BOARD as the full recipient of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational,Working and business development TO receive the sum of 1,000,000.000 ONE MILLION POUNDS
The UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM, established 1877 by the Multi-Million groups and now supported by the FBI,Economic Community for West African State(ECOWAS)and the European Union (EU). Based on the random selection exercise of internet websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide, you were selected among the recipients to receive the award sum of 1,000,000.00 GBP (One Million British pounds sterlings) as charity donations/aid from the UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION ,ECOWAS and EU EUROPEAN UNION in a ccordance with the enabling act of Parliament, All beneficiaries email addresses were selected randomly from over 100,000 internet websites around the World.No ticket were sold
You are required to contact our company representative whom will be in charge of your claim with the below information:
FULL NAMES :
ADDRESS:
COUNTRY:
TEL:
SEX:
AGE:
OCCUPATION:
ANNUAL INCOME:
Send all the requested claim information to your allocated claim officer:
Mr. Charles Morris
Email: undp_claimsdept107@hotmail.com
Tell: +44 704 5725 417
Claims Processing Officer,
Warm Regards.
G.G.Miccaglla.
Anti-fraud resources:
