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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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 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.
- urgentdelivery2011@hotmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "United Nation Lucky Prize Award" <test@slshaw.info>
Reply-To: urgentdelivery2011@hotmail.com
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 17:57:30 -0500
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS
:::______YEAR 2011 EMAIL PRIZE AWARDS________:::
Dear Winner,
We at United Nations (UN) global office likes to officially
congratulate you for the draw that was just held by our organization
which featured you as the second place of winner.
Our organization holds promotions each year just to promote our
global publicity and reputations as we plan to exploit more corners
of the world.
This promotion is just one of various ways we are presently using to
achieves this global vision of our World.Your email address with Winning
ID............(UNO-154/446/011) was luckily drawn to be this year's
second place winner of a cash prize of $5.5M. United States Dollars.
This money and gift We believe will enable you make some impact in the society.
Ensure you contact Mr.Ban Ki-moon, who is our claims official in
Asia.. Malaysia and can understand English languages.See details
of him below.
Name : Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Email :urgentdelivery2011@hotmail.com
Tel: (+6) 0123955624
When contacting the claims agent you should include the following
*** Your Full Name:...........................
*** Address:................................
*** Phone number:.........................
*** Age:...............
*** Gender:.....................
*** Occupation:......................
*** Winning email and Winning ID:......................
*** Marital Status:.......................
*** Country:...................
We know you must be excited and very happy about this news you have
just received from us and the truth is that we are doing this to put
smiles into homes and hearts of people worldwide.
Special greetings from the entire Staffs of United Nations
Trust Funds Worldwide.
Signed,
Mr Ban Ki-moon
(UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL.)
________________________________________________________
*NOTE** You must be 18years or older to claim. Late response is not
accepted.Misconduct and non adherence to instructions leads to prize
termination.
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Anti-fraud resources:
