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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:
- "international lottery programme" (no such lottery exists)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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.
- +2348039410624 (Nigeria, 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.
- canadianlottoagent@gmail.com
Fraud email example:
From: "canadian Lotto" <lotolore5@pravda.ru>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:15:06 +0100
Subject: Congratulations Winner...You Won $820,000 USD
Dear Winner,
We are pleased to inform you that you have won $820,000.00 in lottolore Draw
held on the Thurs 17th,July 2008 from the Canadian International Lottery
programme which All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web
site through computer draws system and extracted from over 10,000,00
companies and personal e-mail addresses.Your e-mail address attached to
ticket number: B9564 7560 4545 100 with serial number 046560.
CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT FOR MORE DETAILS:
Name: Mr Peter Moore
Email: canadianlottoagent@gmail.com
Telephone:+234-803-941-0624
NOTE:Do not reply to this email,contact your claims agent with this
information for payment:Full
Names,Age,Address,Nationality,Occupations,Mob.Telephone.
Signed.
Mary jack (Mrs)
Lottery Coordinator
Anti-fraud resources:
