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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "million dollars" (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)
- "mrsmariankate@luckymail.com" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
- 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!
Fraud email example:
From: "Compensation 2012" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mrsmariankate@luckymail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:50:20 +0800
Subject: Attention
On behalf of the Malaysia Sweeptakes Compensation Award, we wish to notify you as a beneficiary of $2.5million dollars in compensation of scam victims.The selection process was done through a Computerized selection system from a database of over 750,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the globe. No ticket was sold or bought, but each individual play coupon representing an email ID was assigned Winning/Reference numbers for identification.
Find below your Award Qualification Numbers:
Award Number: (OXFUSA-12-0531)
Winning Number: (ODXFUSA-D-42)
Do contact the ONLINE CO-ORDINATOR, MALAYSIA Branch for
verification and release of your $2.5million dollars that we have deposited
Name: Mrs.Marian Kate
Private Email:mrsmariankate@luckymail.com Provide these
information's to enable us proceed with payment.
Name (in full); _________________________________
Sex; ____________________________________________
Date of Birth (month/day/year)___________________
Home Address; ___________________________________
Office Address; _________________________________
Telephone Number; _______________________________
Country of Residence; ___________________________
Nationality; ____________________________________
Occupation; _____________________________________
Marital Status; _________________________________
Winning Code; _____________V2012-J5502626#2K_____
Indicate your mode of payment.
Bank Transfer;__________________
Delivery of Bank Cheque;____________
Yours Faithfully,
Dr.peter lee Yong
Coordinator.
Malaysia Sweeptakes Compensation Award
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Anti-fraud resources:
