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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:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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: (sent from abused email account)
Reply-To: claimsenquire@hotmail.com
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2010 11:51:00 +0300
Subject: Ticket Number:418 8354952 518
We happily announce to you the draw (#963) of the UK NATIONAL LOTTERY Online
Sweepstakes International programmer held on 1st of September, 2010 your e-
mail address has been selected randomly amongst twenty others by a Computer
Ballot System through a WORLD WIDE WEB SITE SEARCH NGINE . Here is your
ticket number: 418 8354952518 with Serial number 9418/07 that won you
£516,778.00 Pounds
Claims Requirements:
1.Full Name: ..............................
2.Address:.................................
3.Nationality:.............................
4.Occupation:..............................
5.Age:.......... Date of Birth:............
6.Sex:.....................................
7.Phone...................Fax:.............
8.State of Origin:.........................
Mode of payment/Courier delivery
Claims Agent
Mr Peter Taylor
Email:claims.enquire@live.com
Yours Truly
Steven Burtler
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Anti-fraud resources:
