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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 orphan scam.
Fraud email example:
From: Raymo Bongo <raymobongo@cptelnet.com>
Reply-To: christinakendo@hotmail.fr
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:30:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: From Miss Christina Kendo
 From Miss Christina Kendo
A Bidjan Cote D' ivoier
 West Africa
 Â
 Dear sir/ma
 It is my pleasure to inform you of my present situation
 and humbly ask for your help. My name is Christina Kendo I’m
 23 yrs old the only child of my late parents, my father
 was a former special adviser on rural development and culture
 to the Interior Minister in my country before he died.
 He was murdered with the Interior Minister by the rebels,
 during the recent political crises in my country Bourke
 Cote D'Ivoire . My late father also has a Cocoa farm which
 was totally burnt by the rebels after he was killed.
 Before his death he secretly deposited the sum of ($3.5
 Million USD) in a Financial Security Firm and inform me that
 if any thing happened to him I should look for a reliable
 person to help me invest this fund for my future and make
 sure I live the country for my safety he mention this as
 if he knows that he was going to die.
 I hereby seek for your assistance to transfer into your
 account in your country my heritance fund as a reliable
 and trustworthy person, and after the transfer of the fund to
 you I will relocate to your country for the safety of my life,
 you will also help me invest this fund wisely for my future in your country.      Â
 I have lived in the church for so long now just for my
 safety I still believe that my father’s enemies are still
 after me. I will appreciate your positive response to my mail.
 I will offer you 30% of the total fund for your assistance.
 I shall give you more details as soon as I hear from you.
  Regards
Christina Kendo.
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