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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: "Goodluck" <goodluckpeters@rocketmail.com>
Reply-To: Goodluckpeters135@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:58:07 +0800 (PHT)
Subject: INVESTMENT PROPOSAL
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Dearest One
Please bear with me for probing into your privacy, I am in asylum and the
law of my host country did not allow me in carrying out certain functions
hence I need your assistance to receive and invest my fund the sum of
$7.3M which i inherited from my late father as his next of kin
My choice of investment would have been Real Estate but since you are out
there and the one carrying out the investment I will welcome any business
that you consider lucrative.Please do get back to me if this proposal is
of interest to you,
Yours Sincerely,
Miss Goodluck Jones
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Anti-fraud resources:
