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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:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "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)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
- 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.
- johntoma002@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: John Toma <johntoma004@chamberbf.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 07:12:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: mr john toma
Dear friend,
I am mr john toma the head of file department of Bank of Africa (B.O.A) here in Burkina Faso / Ouagadougou. In my department we discover an abandoned sum of (US$18million US Dollars) in an account that belong to one of our foreign customer who died along with his family in plane crash.
It is therefore upon this discovery that i now decided taoa make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for the safety and subsequent disbursement since noboady is coming for it. I agree that 35% of this money will be for you, and 5% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 60% would be for me. Then after the money is been transferred into your account, i will visit your country for an investment under your kind control.
You have to contact my Bank directly as the real next of kin of this deceased account with next of kin application form.You have to send me those your information below to enable me use it and get you next of kin application form from bank, so that you will contact Bank for the transfer of this money into your account.
Your Full Name......................
Your Home Address..............
Your Age.............................
Your Handset Number...........
Your Occupation...................
I am waiting for your urgent respond to enable us proceed further for the transfer.contact me through this email: johntoma002@gmail.com
Yours faithfull,
mr john toma
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