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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:
- "huge amount of money" (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)
- "remain blessed" (scammers in West Africa like to use religious phrases)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "ENGR MUHMOUD M" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <muhammedmomoud@maktoob.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2011 04:18:49 -0800
Subject: I NEED PARTNER IN YOUR COUNTRY.
I NEED PARTNER IN YOUR COUNTRY.
Attn,
I am contacting you based on my desperately in need of foreign partner; I need a responsible and humble person who I can make business relationship with in abroad. I am a young guy of 28yrs old, I just graduated from the university where I read Marine Engineering. Please your assistance is very important to me because I have a huge amount of money to start up business over there in your country.
I will like to invest this fund with you as my foreign partner in a profitable business that you will suggest,So that we can both understand ourselves and sign memorandum of understanding. I realized that different things are now happening on internet;
Conclusively, I have decided that after the arrangement is perfected, I will travel down to your country and we will both start the business based on your expertise advise apart from what you will benefit from this assistance; I will give you 20% of every income we get per Month on the business and 4% of every Annual income just to show my appreciation to you as the person that gave me every support I needed.
I wish this dream comes alive through your assistance. I will ever remain grateful to you.
Thanks in anticipation and remain blessed.
Regards,
ENG MUHMOUDMAHAMMED (JNR}
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Anti-fraud resources:
