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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:
- "required fee " (this will cost you money - be careful with upfront payments to anyone you only know through email, especially if they promise you a lot of money. NEVER send money by Western Union or MoneyGram to people you do not know personally - NO EXCEPTIONS! Instant wire transfer services are not meant to be used with strangers because they offer no protection against fraud. That is precisely why the criminals want you send money that way. )
- 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: "Prize" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <kingsleymmgh11@mail.mn>
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2011 22:49:32 -0000
Subject: Re: Lotto Payment arrangement. (We shall pay fund into your Chase A/C).
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Smith Family Lotto 2011
Castlewood House, 78-19 New Oxford Street,
London - United Kingdom
Winning Prize: £6,515,000
Winning Ref. No.: LND/WIN/008/05/10/MA; BATCH NUMBER:UK/1007/444/606/11;
SERIAL:23-7-2-6-12-9
Dear Prize Winner,
We have written to infor you that the theme of our Lottery payment is that you will not be paying any fee at all. But due to obvious reason the lottery commission in the course of clearance of the Lottery Prize has requested that you will pay some fee but assure you that WE HAVE ARRANGED FOR FUNDS TO BE SENT TO YOU SO THAT YOU CAN MAKE THE REQUIRED PAYMENT SO AS TO ENABLE US RELEASE YOUR LOTTERY PRIZE TO YOU LEGITIMATELY AND WITHIN THE CONFINE OF THE LAW. For this you have been advised to create a bank account with JP Morgan Chase bank urgently and furnish us with the details to enable our contact credit the required fee into the bank account. If you do not have a bank account with JP Morgan Chase then alternatively you can open an account with them immediately and furnish us with the details or you can open an account with Wells Fargo or Bank of America (BOA) and furnish us with the details in order to ensure that our contact credits the required fee into the bank account
Also if you have not received your lottery Certificate please restate your contact address phone number as we are obliged to deliver it to you since you are not coming to pick it up in person. Please act quickly to ensure that you receive fund pay the required fee to ensure that your lottery prize is released to you between now and the end of the next week as supposed. Best Regards and Congratulation
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Anti-fraud resources:
