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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:
- "spdcgrants@bismillah.com" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Shell Petroleum Grants 2010 <marketing@thanos.at>
Reply-To: <spdcprocessor@bismillah.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 01:57:40 -0800
Subject: RE: Congrats - Grants - Ref. HLP/200-26937
Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Service to Humanity
You have been awarded Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Poinds Sterling attached to File
Ref. HLP/200-26937
Contact Processing Agency: spdcgrants@bismillah.com
Melanie Herald
Grants Co-ordinator
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Note:
This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential, proprietary
or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by
any mistransmission.
If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it
from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc and any of its subsidiaries each reserve the right to monitor all
e-mail communications through its networks.
Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the
message states otherwise and the sender is authorized to state them to be the views of any
such entity. Thank You.
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Anti-fraud resources:
