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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:
- "million united states dollars" (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: "UNITED NATION PROMOTION" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <davidbrown@redorbit.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 16:08:17 +0100
Subject: Attention:
Attention,
We here at the united nations(UN) Here in (usa) selected your email in our internet promotion has emerge you a lucky winner of our internet star winning promotion for individuals in the united states of america and entire europe.
You have to get back to our agent here in united states with the informations below for further processing of your winning bank draft of $3million united states dollars.
Fill in the informations below and forward to our agent here in the USA with the email address information.
1. Full Name..............................
2 Age/Occupation............................
3. Winning email Address.........................
4. Phone Number.................................
5. Marital Status ..................................
6 Contact Address..............................
7. Country ( entail if your from usa)...............................
Contact the programm agent operator here in the united states with the information above on her contact below:
EMAIL ADDRESS OF OFFICER AGENT: Mr. David Brown
Email address of Officer agent: davidbrown@redorbit.com
Congratulations once again from the executives of the united nations internet winning program .
Get in touch with the agent( Mr.David Brown) with your required information with the contact above for the claim of your winnings.
Regards
Mr Bryan Hills
Public Relation Officer
UNited Nations USA
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Anti-fraud resources:
