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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 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)
- "i have a new email address!" (this SPAM email was probably sent to thousands of people)
- 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.
- woodman.greg@yahoo.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: (sent from abused email account)
Reply-To: gregwoodman@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:26:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: UNIVERSAL NETWORKS INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY.
I have a new email address!You can now email me at: woodman.greg@yahoo.com
- REF NO: MSW/56B-672GH/ES, BATCH NO: 4583JL/WIN/IDS, LUCKY SECRET CODE No: 01974 UNIVERSAL NETWORKS INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY FOR WORLD INTERNET USERS,PROMOTION OF 2008,FROM DESK OF {UNIVERSAL NETWORKS AWARD EMAIL LOTERY}YOUR EMAIL ID HAS WON $2,000,000.00 (Two Million US Dollars) in the first category of our computer ballot email lottery.No ticket was sold but it is to encourage the user of Internet and to claim your winning prize contact the paying agent office,through this email address.send the following to the claim department: Full names and Email address: All winings must be claimed not later than 30days.Note also winners under the age of 18 years are automatically disqualified. Sincerely Yours, Mr.Greg Woodman.
Anti-fraud resources:
