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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 phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "fiduciary agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- ",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)
- "mrjamespeterson111@osoud.org" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
- 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: "2010 Microsoft Award Promo United Kingdom" <info@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: mrjamespeterson111@osoud.org
Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 18:50:06 +0700
Subject: (CONGRATULATION!!! (Your Email Address=?ISO-8859-1?Q?_Have_Won_=A31?=,000.000.00 GBP)
Dear lucky winner,
This is to inform you that your email has won a consultation
prize of the Microsoft Corporation EMAIL DRAW held 2010
your email won you
(£1,000,000.00) (One Million Great British Pounds
To claim your prize,please contact your fiduciary agent
Mr. James Peterson with your Batch#:409978E and Reference
No:FL/668530092 and contact him via email immediately within
24hrs with the information below.
Contact Peterson: Mr.James Peterson.
Microsoft Promotion Award Team Head
Winning Claims Dept.
Email: mrjamespeterson111@osoud.org
================================================================
CERTIFICATE OF PRIZE CLAIM(Receipt Official
Notification Letter)
===============================================================
1. Full Name.......................
2. Marital Status:...............
3. Occupation :..............
4. Age:..............
5. Sex:................
6. Nationality:...........
7. Tel:..............
8. You Home Address...............
Our special thanks and gratitude to Bill Gates and his associates.
We wish you the best of luck. Thank you for being part of our promotional
award
program and commemorative Anniversary Draws.
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Anti-fraud resources:
