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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: Johnson Adams <jladams@live.fr>
Reply-To: jadams71728@yahoo.fr
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2012 01:29:47 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Good day
Good day
My name is Johnson Adams from Zimbabwe adopted Son of late Chief Edwin Adams we resides in Ivory Coast before he died during the past crisis in Ivory Coast.
Please I need your assistance to secure my inheritance which I inherited from my late adopted father, the sum of ($18.2 million) which he willed to me before he died as his adopted Son.
What I need from you is to stand for me and receive the money in your country and invest it for me in your country while I will continue with my education when I join you in your country because the wife of my late father is not happy about the money I inherited from the family because I am not her biological son and she did not have a male child for the family and the woman has been hunting to kill me since after the death of the husband.
Hence the reason why I want the money to be moved out of here as soon as possible even the family lawyer have advised me to do everything I could to leave the country because the woman is desperate to do anything against just for no reason. I will relate further information to you when I hear from you and also I will offer you 15% of the total money for this noble assistance.
We will discuss more when I hear from you.
Best regards,
Johnson Adams
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Anti-fraud resources:
