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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 orphan scam.
Fraud email example:
From: KONE <marykone1@rediffmail.com>
Reply-To: mary.kone73@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 17:07:27 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Greetings from Miss MARY KONE.
Greetings from Miss MARY KONE.
Dearest One.
I am Miss MARY KONE from IVORY COAST. I am contacting you because I need your urgent help to secure the money that my late father left for me before he died.This money is USD 4.7 million and the money is deposited in a bank in IVORY COAST.
My father was a very rich cocoa farmer who worked with the ousted president Laurent Gbagbo, he was killed during the recent political crisis in my country because he was in his government, and those people that were behind his death are after my life too. I want to relocate from my country to anywhere that will be safe for my life.
For this purpose I am contacting you to stand as my guardian and receive the money in your
country. Because of the political crisis in Ivory Coast here and my age I can not be able to handle such matter, and I do not want to risk my life because this place are full of
desprate people.
Please, I would like you to reply to this email if you can help me so that I can explain in details about this matter.
I am waiting for your kind reply and may God bless you,
Your faithfully.
Miss MARY KONE.
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Anti-fraud resources:
