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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 office" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- ",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)
- 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.
- +447031924159 (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.
- fiduciaryclaimsdeptuk@hotmail.com
Fraud email example:
From: "Long, Louis C" <longl@northwood.edu>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 20:15:42 -0400
Subject: E-mail On-Line Winner, Contact for Your claims!!!.
UK NATIONAL LOTTERY BOARD,
LOTTO Headquarters:
Customer Service
Ref: UK/9420X2/68
Batch: 074/05/ZY369
WINNING NOTIFICATION:
We wish to congratulate you over your email success in our
computer balloting Games held on Month of May 2008.
This is a Millennium Scientific Computer Draw in which your email
addresses were Selected Among The Four (4) Online Winners of The
Uk National Lottery programme,To encourage internet users,
You do Not have to buy ticket before you are selected as Winner,
You have won the sum of (£1,000,000.00) One Million Great British
Pounds Sterlling Out of four selected winner weekly in cash credited.
to file Ref
No,UK/9420X2/68 ;Batch No 074/05/ZY369; pin no 0147uk .......To claim
your winning
Contact Our
Fiduciary Claims Office: With the details below, to file out your
claims.
Name: Mr Robert smirt
Telephone- +44-7031-924-159
Telephone- +44-7031-904-274
E-mail:Address: fiduciaryclaimsdeptuk@hotmail.com
1. Name: 2. Address 3. Age: 4. Sex: 5. Phone: 6. Country. 7.Ref
No,UK/9420X2/68. 8.pin no,
Long, Louis C (Mr)
On-Line Co-ordinator
uk National Lottery board
Anti-fraud resources:
