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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:
- This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
- 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:
- ",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!
Fraud email example:
From: "Carl Robisson " <info@uknl.com>
Reply-To: claims.uklottery@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:27:46 +0100
Subject:
--
Dear: e-Mail
Winner,
The UK National Lottery has set out and successfully organized a
Sweepstakes marking the beginning of
year anniversary. We rolled out over
10,000.000.00 (10 million e-mails) to mark the 2009 Anniversary
Draws.
Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide
range of web hosts which we enjoy
their BETA patronage attaching
personalized email addresses to ticket numbers.
Your email address as indicated was
drawn and attached to Ticket
No:56475600545188
with Serial No:2113-05 and drew the lucky numbers
9-21-17-39-23-13(10) which
subsequently won you 1,000,000.00 (One Million Great Britain pounds) as
one of the 10
jackpot winners in this draw. To begin the processing of
your prize you are to contact our beneficiary claims
department for more
information as regards
procedures
to claim your prize.
Mr. Carl
Robisson
Email :claims-uknldept-dept1@live.com
Contact him by sending him with the under listed
informations
1.Full Name:
2.Full Delivery Address:
3.sex:
4.Occupation:
5.Phone
Number:
6.Country:
7.Age:
Congratulation!!
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Griffin
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Anti-fraud resources:
