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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:
- The following fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "the bmw automobile company" (no such lottery exists)
- 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!
- This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
- +447010036223 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
- This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- bmw_10claimsdprize@hotmail.com (Hotmail; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: "BMW AUTO MOBILE COMPANY" <bmw_10claimsdprize@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 08:05:45 +0000
Subject: CONGRATULATION
--
The BMW
Automobile Company, congratulate you as one of our Ten (10) Star Prize
Winner in our 2010 International Awareness
Promotion (IAP) held in London.
The selection process was carried out through random selection in
our
Computerized Email Selection System (C.E.S.S.) from a database of over a
million email addresses from
the world wide web. Each email address was
attached to a ticket number and your email address with ticket
number:
5647600545188 and serial number: BMWP/556543450906 was randomly selected.
This makes you owner of
a brand new BMW 5 Series car and a cash prize of
£950,000.00
Great British pounds} For claims of your
winning prize contact:
Dr:harrison louise
E-mail:bmw_10claimsdprize@hotmail.com
Phone:
+447010036223
Contact him, with your, Serial No:
BMWP/556543450906 and Ref No:
BMW:
2551256003/23.
Also provide listed information below:
Names:-----------------------------------------
Address:---------------------------------------
Age:-------------------------------------------
Sex:-------------------------------------------
Occupation:-------------------------------------
mobile
numbers:--------------------------------------
Fax number:-------------------------------------
Country:----------------------------------------
Maritalstatus:----------------------------------
Won
Before:-------------------------------------
Note:Any person below 18 yrs of age is prohibited to partake in this
promo.
Congratulations once more, and keep trusting BMW Automobile company.
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Anti-fraud resources:
