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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- ",500,000" (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)
- 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.
- andy_smith3004@yahoo.com.hk (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: (sent from abused email account)
Reply-To: andy_smith3004@yahoo.com.hk
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:20:59 +0800
Subject: WINNING NOTIFICATION
POWER BALL COMPANY AWARD DEPARTMENT
POWER BALL INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
CUSTOMER SERVICE/AWARD DEPT.
Dear Lucky Winner,
We happily announce to you the New Year draw of Power Ball games
International programs. Your email account was selected and you have won!!
Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 5 21 22 41 49 15.You have
therefore been approved to claim a total sum of 1,500,000. 00(One Million
Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds).All participants were selected
randomly from World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and
extracted from over 200,000 companies. To process your claim, contact our
financial controller with the details below.
********************************
FINANCIAL CONTROLLER
Name: ANDY SMITH
Email: andy_smith3004@yahoo.com.hk
***********************************
You are advised to provide the following details below to him for claims.
FULL NAMES:
SEX
AGE:
ADDRESS:
COUNTRY
MOBILE PHONE NUMBER:
MARITAL STATUS:
OCCUPATION:
Congratulations once more from all members and staffs of this program.
Yours faithfully,
Andrade Varga Candelaria
(Coordinator)
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Anti-fraud resources:
