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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)
- "fatf@qatar.io" (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: "Mastercard Award Team" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <dkorona00@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 00:07:09 -0800
Subject: You Have Been Awarded
Dear Noble Wimmer
Congratulations!!
I am pleased to inform you that one of the best things that can happen to any Internet user is to be rewarded for spending money
and time on the Internet.So much money is generated from people like you all over the World for using the Information Superhighway (the Internet)
without your being aware the enormous sum that go to the stake holders (WWITC). Without your patronage, this would not have been possible.In our
begining of year draw held on the 30th January 2013 with our sophisticated automated database to randomly select E-mail accounts that frequently surf
the Internet, your E-mail address was picked for Category "B" Winners(under the Nokia,Africa Remittance Region).
You have won the sum of one million Dollars from Nokia Online 2013 promotion. Contact our
promotional officer(Mr Fred Kanda ) with the email below for further Claims instructions.
Mr Fred Kanda
Email: fatf@qatar.io
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mårten Mickos
Nokia zonal coordinator .
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Copyright ©2013 Nokia. All rights reserved
NOKIA Begining Of Year Promotion was done to promote the use of nokia and
internet.
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Anti-fraud resources:
