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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 message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Dr.Odiah Dan Jason <odiahdjason@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:00:47 -0700
Subject: Our business introduction
Dear sir,
We work in Government department responsible for contracts here in Africa. Some years ago we awarded many contracts to foreign companies and all of these were grossly over-invoiced to the tone of USD28.6M.This money has been approved for payment by the central bank and thus this contact.
REASONS FOR OUR CONTACT AND HOW IT WORKS:
1) To solicit your assistance to receive this money i.e. USD28.6M in
your bank
account
2)To seek your advice on what to invest on in your country
3) As civil servants we are forbidden from having huge sums
in our account or operate foreign accounts
We shall give you 20% of the total sum for your
collaboration,10% for taxation in your country and 70% for
we the officals from Africa. We await your reply today.
Yours faithfully
Dr Dan Odiah
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Anti-fraud resources:
