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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.
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Mail Administrator" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <qwestoffice2@fm.bb>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:33:47 -0600
Subject: RE-ACTIVATE EMAIL ACCOUNT
This mail is to inform all our webmail users that we will be maintaining
and upgrading our website in a couple of days.As a Subscriber you
are required to send us your Email account details to enable us know
if you are still making use of your email Account.
Be informed that we will be deleting all email account that is not
functioning to enable us create more space for more users.
You are to send your email account details which are as follows:
*User Name:
*Password:
You can also confirm your email address by logging into your webmail
before sending us the required information. WARNING: Any one who
receive's this email and fails to respond to the mail will be deactivated
immediately from our database.
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Anti-fraud resources:
