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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 fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "irish lottery" (can only win this lottery if you bought a ticket)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "million us 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)
- ",000,000" (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)
- "00,000.00" (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)
- "iirishlottacenter@secretary.net" (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: "IRISH LOTTERY" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <Iirishlottacenter@secretary.net>
Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2012 19:44:01 -0000
Subject: IRISH EMAIL LOTTERY AWARD NOTIFICATION
IRISH EMAIL LOTTERY AWARD NOTIFICATION
Ref: UK/9420X2/68
Batch: 074/05/ZY369
Dear Winner,
We are pleased to inform you of the final result of the Irish Lottery Promotion select by email addresses of the year Online Promotion
held on November 2012.This is the due time we are about distributing winnings to winners.
Your email address was attached to Reference Number UK/9420X2/68 was picked as one of the ten winning email addresses.This has qualified you
to claim the total cash prize Of ($1,000,000.00) One Million US Dollars in cash credited to file KTU/9023118308/03. This is from a total cash prize
of (£7,534,370.00) shared amongst the first ten (10) Email winners in this category.
CLAIMS PROCESSING FORM FOR FILLING OF CLAIMS.
1) Name:
2) Age:
3) sex:
4) Occupation:
5) Country:
6) Address:
7) Phone No:
8) Winning Email:
9) A Photo Copy of your Identifcation proof
Email To; Iirishlottacenter@secretary.net
Mark Welberg (PHD)
Director,Irish Email Lottery Awards
IRISH LOTTERY INCORPORATION EMAIL AWARD NOTIFICATION
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Anti-fraud resources:
