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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:
- "abidjan" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Patience Vincent" <patvin1@live.fr>
Reply-To: patiencevincent@ymail.com
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013 17:47:13 -0500
Subject: Please read carefully and reply immediately for more details
Dearly beloved,
With due respect I am contacting you to help me and my little son out of
the problem before us.
My husband before his untimely death instructed that I should escape with
our only child to Ghana being the neighboring country during the crisis in
Cote Ivoire and if the crisis end that I should look for a reliable person
outside Cote D`Ivoire who will assist me to claim his money worth the sum
of ($15m USD) which he deposited in one of the banks here in Abidjan as
fix,
Please this is my main reason of contacting you now so I will explain
better when I get your reply to help us out.I hope to hear from you as
soon as possible.
Thanks,
Mrs Patience Vincent.
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Anti-fraud resources:
