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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.
- 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 mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
Fraud email example:
From: "mr david richmond" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <agentdavid003@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 22:23:18 +0100
Subject: EURO MILLION SPLASH
EURO MILLION SPLASH
ATTENTION: WINNER
Batch: 109/91300/EML
Ref No: EML/ 56-TF-8890776
Congratulation!!!This to inform you that With refrence number :
EML/56-TF-8890776 and Batch: 109/91300/EML you have won our Euro
Million Splash Promo New Year Grant , the sum of Four Hundred and
Twenty Thousand Great British Pounds (420,000.00 GBP).Your email
address was chosen from our email electronic balloting system (EEBS)
that randomly selects email addresses from the web. This year's
promotion is backed by the British Gameing Board and Euro Million
Corporation. It's very legal and true.
You are required to forward the following details to facilitate the
processing of your claims:
FULL NAMES:
CONTACT ADDRESS:
AGE:
TELEPHONE NUMBER:
SEX:
OCCUPATION:
NATIONALITY:
COUNTRY:
You are expected to quote your reference number as well when sending
your info. You can call the number below for confirmation.
+234-812-385-0240
Once again Congratulation
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Anti-fraud resources:
