419 scam: "AOL Billing Center"<BillingCenter@aim.com> YOUR AOL UPDATE!

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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.
This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.

Fraud email example:

From: "AOL Billing Center" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <AOLBillingCenter@aim.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:44:57 -0700
Subject: YOUR AOL UPDATE!

Dear valued AOL member,

It has come to our attention that your billing information's are out of order.

Verify Your AOL Account

Dear,
As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the AOL
system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account. We
requested information from you for the following reason:

Our system requires update account information.

Click here to verify your account

Once you have updated your account records, your AOL session will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

If you have recently updated your billing information, please disregard this message as we are processing the changes you have made.

Sincerely,

AOL Member Services Team

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam