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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:
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- 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.
- online_verification1@hotmail.com (Hotmail; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From:
Date:
Subject:
by HZDFYD.com MailServer with ESMTP by
mail.xsedu.zj.cn Thu, 19 May 2011 11:58:02 GMT
Reply-To: <online_centre2@admin.in.th>
From: "Euro Million Online Lottery"<online_verification1@hotmail.com>
Subject: Your Email Address Has Won The Euro Million Online Lottery 2011
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 13:57:51 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="Windows-1251"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgcolor=#FFFFFF leftmargin=5 topmargin=5 rightmargin=5 bottommargin=5>
<FONT size=2 color=#000000 face="Arial">
<DIV>
EURO MILLION ONLINE PROMOTION 2011</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
RE:OFFICIAL PRIZE AWARD NOTICE.</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
DEAR WINNER,</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE WON A PRIZE MONEY OF FIVE MILLION</DIV>
<DIV>
EURO (€ 5,000,000.00) ON THE ON GOING EURO MILLION INTERNET</DIV>
<DIV>
AWARENESS PROMOTION 2011. ALL THE E-MAIL ADDRESSES OF THE</DIV>
<DIV>
PARTICIPANTS LEGIBLE FOR THIS AWARD WERE SUBSCRIBERS FROM YAHOO, HOTMAIL</DIV>
<DIV>
AND OTHER E-MAIL SERVICE PROVIDERS WORLDWIDE.</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
PLEASE CONTACT OUR APPROVED AGENT FOR YOUR REGION WITH YOUR WINNING NUMBER</DIV>
<DIV>
AND YOUR FILLED CLAIMS VERIFICATION FORM BELOW.</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
WINNING NUMBER : (GUI45856CS89)</DIV>
<DIV>
BALLOT NUMBER: (BN: 6220914657/HBZ-T)</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
CLAIMS VERIFICATION FORM.</DIV>
<DIV>
FULL NAMES .</DIV>
<DIV>
ADDRESS .</DIV>
<DIV>
NATIONALITY .</DIV>
<DIV>
COUNTRY .</DIV>
<DIV>
TEL/FAX .</DIV>
<DIV>
AGE/SEX .</DIV>
<DIV>
MARITAL STATUS .</DIV>
<DIV>
OCCUPATION .</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
PAYMENT OPTION</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
BANK TO BANK PAYMENT ONLY.</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
CONGRATULATIONS FROM ALL MEMBERS OF STAFF OF THE EURO MILLION LOTTERY.</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
Mr.Richard Michael</DIV>
<DIV>
CLAIMS DEPARTMENT.</DIV>
<DIV>
E-MAIL: online_centre1@admin.in.th</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
NOTE: ALL CORRESPONDENCES SHOULD BE FORWARDED TO</DIV>
<DIV>
online_centre1@admin.in.th</DIV>
<DIV>
</DIV>
</FONT>
</BODY></HTML>
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