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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 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!
- This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
Fraud email example:
From: "Dir. Michael Blake" <leslie@onecallinc.com>
Reply-To: newscocacoke@london.com
Date: Fri, 3 May 2013 04:41:19 -0500 (CDT)
Subject:
©2013.Coca-Cola Great Britain
1 Queen Caroline Street
Hammersmith
London
W6 9HQ
United Kingdom.
You have won the sum of £750,000.00 (Great British Pounds) from The
Coca-Cola Company UK©,I wish to announce you as one of the 2nd lucky
winners in our WORLD WIDE SPRING BONANZA sweepstakes draw held on
03-05-2013 .Your email address emerged along side 2 others as a 2nd
category winner in this year's Annual Online Promotion Draw. My Coke
Rewards provides lots of little ways to put a smile on your face, every
time you drink a Coca-Cola product. As the leading consumer packaged goods
loyalty marketing program WORLDWIDE. we have over 14 million members who
have received more than 18 million rewards from leading companies.
Requirements:
FIRST NAME:_______________SURNAME:________________________________
DATE OF BIRTH: _______________COUNTRY:____________OCCUPATION:_____________
POSTAL/HOME ADDRESS:
____________________________________________________________
TELEPHONE :__________________.MOBILE:_____________FAX:________________
Kindly Contact:
Mr. Matthew Mark
TEL: UPON REQUEST
FAX: +44 207 604 8886
EMAIL: spring-on@live.com
(Monday - Friday 09:00 - 17:00)
Be further advised to maintain the strictest level of confidentiality
until the end of proceedings to circumvent problems associated with
fraudulent claims.This is a part of our precautionary measure to avoid
double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Yours faithfully
Dir. Michael Blake
Online Sweepstakes Coordinator
©Copyright 2013
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Anti-fraud resources:
