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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")
- "r_muller@live.com" (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!
- 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.
- +447024072317 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
Fraud email example:
From: Uk Shell Award <australian085@gmail.com>
Reply-To: r_muller@live.com
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:42:23 +0200
Subject: Batch number...................YBM- EBS-390AF
Shell Petroleum Award Lottery
United Kingdom
+44702-407-2317
Dear Winner,
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of Two hundred
thousand Pounds for the 2010 New Year Lottery promotion which was organized
by Shell Petroleum Company UK.
Shell Petroleum Company Organization arrange and gather all the e-mail
addresses of people who are active online, among the millions that
subscribed to Yahoo!, Hotmail and other e-mail providers. Only FIVE (5)
candidates are selected as winners annually through Electronic
Balloting System (EBS) without the candidate applying. We congratulate
you for being one of the people selected.
MODE OF PAYMENT OF WINNING PRIZE:
NOTE:- Your e-mail address that won the prize for you falls within our
European/African representative office in Turkey as indicated in your
play coupon and your prize of Two hundred THousand pounds will be released
to you from our paying bank .
Shell Lottery Prize Award must be claimed not later than 30 days
from date of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has
won.
Note: Any prize not claimed within this period (30 days) will be
forfeited.
These are your identification numbers:
Batch number...................YBM- EBS-390AF
Ref number....................... YBM-EBS-719AF
Winning number...........YBM-EBS-798AF
To claim your prize money, you are required to contact our fiduciary agent
Mr Robert Muller for him to file in an application on your behalf to our
paying bank
with your Batch number, Ref. number
and Winning number through his email below
AGENT NAME - Mr Robert Muller
E-Mail:r_muller@live.com <E-Mail%3Ar_muller@live.com>
You are also required to send your personal informations as follows:
(1)Your Full Names.........................
(2)Your Phone Number......................... .
(3)Your Sex............................ ....................
(4)Your Age............................ ..................
(5)Your Occupation.................... .............
(6)Your Country.................................
WARNING!
1) Do not tell people about your Prize Award until your money is
successfully handed over to you to avoid disqualification that may
arise from double claim.
2) You may also receive similar e-mails from people portraying to be other
Organizations or Shell Lottery Inc. This is solely to collect your
personal information from you and lay claim over your winning. In event
that you receive any e-mail similar to the notification letter that was
sent to you, Kindly delete it from your mail box and give no further
correspondence to such person or body.
Shell Lottery International(S.L.I) shall not be held responsible
for any loss of fund arising from the above mentioned.
Accept our congratulation
Mrs Mary Homan
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Anti-fraud resources:
