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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 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Mr John Saakwa" <info@tvnetwork.hu>
Reply-To: j.saakwa@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:14:21 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Gold For Sale !!!
Good Day Sir/Madam:
I am writing to you at this time to advertise the availability of our main
product, alluvial gold in bulk quantities. Like as i told you we are local
Gold miners in the village in Ashanti Kingdom and we have 230 kilos of
Gold dust now with us and our selling price is 40.000 us dollars per kilo.
We have a lot of Gold in our royal family land in the village but all we
need is a good trust worthy buyers who will buy and pay,then we will do
more business for long time and meet with you face to face in your country
so we wait your reply and tell us how many kilos of Gold you want to buy
as we proceed for the delivery without any further delay.
Yours truly,
Mr. John Saakwa,
From Royal Family Ashanti Kingdom Gold Coast Ghana
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Anti-fraud resources:
