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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:
- The following fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "uk national lottery" (can only win this lottery if you bought a ticket)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "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)
- 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 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.
- awardzone05@googlemail.com
Fraud email example:
From: "UK NATIONAL LOTTERY" <UkNationalLottery@hamdard.net.pk>
Reply-To: awardzone05@googlemail.com
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:21:19 +0500
Subject: Dear Winner Your ticket number: 56475600545188
Dear Winner,
Your ticket number: 56475600545188 with Serial number 5368/0 Drew the
lucky number: 19 Congratulations, you have just won yourself.
£500,000.00(FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS) in the satellite software
email Lottery conducted by UK NATIONAL LOTTERY in which e-mail
addresses are picked randomly by software powered by the Internet. Your
email address was chosen for this quarter and you are to Contact our
Financial Controller for Clearance:
CLAIMS AGENT: Mr Mac Pederson
Email:awardzone05@googlemail.com
Full Names:
Address:
Age:
Sex:
Occupation:
Phone numbers:
Country:
Yours faithfully,
UK NATIONAL LOTTERY
UNITED KINGDOM.
Anti-fraud resources:
