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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:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "million us 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)
- 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.
- +31626415837 (Netherlands, 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.
- contact_densmore@yahoo.com.hk (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "Mrs. Kathy Vero" <densmorestewart0@yahoo.com.hk>
Reply-To: contact_densmore@yahoo.com.hk
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:31:23 -0530 (IST)
Subject: Attn: Lucky Winner
LOTTO NL
www.lotto.nl
Batch No.998/7890/543, Ref No.512/333/765
Ticket/Series No.SPL77734
Attn: Lucky Winner,
This is to announce to you the recent e-lottery draws, your
email was
selected from an exclusive list of 150,000 emails generated
from an
internet resource database.
You have therefore won a cash prize of $2,000,000.00 (Two
Million US
Dollars). To file the claim of your prize sum payment, You
are advised
to contact our Certified claims agent as the category "A"
winners with
the information below:
* Mr. Densmore Stewart
* Email: contact_densmore@yahoo.com.hk
* Tel: +31-626-415-837
* Fax: +31-847-375-060
* www.lotto.nl
You are adviced to send him the bellow information & a copy
of your
Passport or License via email attachment or by fax for
vetting process
which is a standard practice just to ensure that we are
dealing with
the right individual.
Age:--
Names:--
Telephone:--
Fax number:-(if any)-
Occupation:--
Nationality:--
Remember to quote your reference information in all
correspondence.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Kathy Vero
Lottery Co-ordinator
-- Sent at 15:05:19 on 08/20/08 through NITK (http://www.nitk.ac.in/) Email Gateway . AV scanning & Spam checking are done on this mail --
Anti-fraud resources:
