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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 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.
- jerrymongan3@hotmail.com (Hotmail; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: "Microsoft Corporation" <info@microsoft.org>
Reply-To: jerrymongan3@hotmail.com
Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 12:03:12 -0400
Subject: OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION
MICROSOFT AWARD TEAM
Microsoft Corporation
Thames Valley Park,
Reading Berkshire RG61WG.
United Kingdom.
AWARD NOTIFICATION®.
We are pleased to inform you of the release, of the long awaited
results of the Microsoft Award Promotional EMAIL DRAW held on
THURSDAY MAY 26th 2011. You were entered as dependent clients with:
Reference SERIAL NUMBER: 652-662 and Batch number AT-040SB06-03. Your
email address attached to the ticket number: 2752246896 that drew the
lucky winning number, which consequently won the sweepstake in the
firstcategory,in four parts. You have been approved for a payment of
£750,000.00 (SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND GREAT BRITAIN PONUDS
STERLING.) in cash. You are to contact your/our-accredited agent with this
information for your claim now.
1.FULL NAMES:___ 2.ADDRESS:___ 3.SEX:____ 4.AGE:____
5.MARITAL STATUS:___ 6.OCCUPATION:__ 7.TELEPHONE NUMBER:__ 8. COUNTRY___
MR. Jerry Mongan
MICROSOFT SECURITY/VERIFICATION DEPARTMENT
E_mail: jerrymongan3@hotmail.com
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Anti-fraud resources:
