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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 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)
- ",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)
- "abuja" (a location commonly mentioned 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.
- 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.
- financedepartment.ecowas@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "ECOWAS DONATION 2008" <ecowas@hamdard.net.pk>
Reply-To: financedepartment.ecowas@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 18:42:36 +0500
Subject: Your email address won the ecowas donation ($1,000,000.00)
Ecowas Donations 2008
101 Yakubu Gowon Cresent
Asokoro District P.M.B. 401
Abuja, Nigeria.
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of One Million
United States Dollars ($1,000,000.00) for this year 2008 Lottery
promotion which is organized by ECOWAS DONATIONS 2008.
ECOWAS DONATIONS 2008, collects all the email addresses of the people
that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to the
Internet. We only select five people every year as our winners through
electronic balloting system without the winner applying, we
congratulate you for being one of the people selected.
These are your identification numbers:
Batch number.....................ECW 09102XN
Ref number.......................ECW35447XN
Winning number...................ECW09788
These numbers fall within your Location file, you are requested to
contact the Ecowas Event Manager/Claims Department, send your winning
identification numbers to him, along with the following details
below ,to enable him verify your claims:
FULL NAMES:
FORWARDING ADDRESSES:
CITY/STATE:
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE:
MARITAL STATUS:
NATIONALITY:
SEX:
DATE OF BIRTH:
WINNING EMAIL:
OCCUPATION:
TEL/FAX:
(CONTACT FINANCE DEPARTMENT)
Name: Dr. Walma Jackson
Tel: +2347030586831
E-mail: financedepartment.ecowas@gmail.com
Yours faithfully,
Mrs. Marian Wallace
Anti-fraud resources:
