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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: ALAN TANG <iso9000management@yahoo.com.hk>
Reply-To: iso9000managements@yahoo.com.hk
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2013 06:37:52 +0800 (SGT)
Subject: NEED YOUR HELP...( ALAN TANG )
I Hope you get this on time, my family and I came down here to Manila, Philippines for a short vacation,unfortunately we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed all cash,credit card and mobile phone were stolen off us but luckily we still have our passports with us.
We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all the bad news is our flight will be leaving in less than 8-hrs from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills.
I'll need your help (LOAN) financially of $3,550 USD. I promise to make the refund once we get back home. Please let me know if you can help and i need you to keep checking your email because it's the only i can reach you.
ALAN TANG
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Anti-fraud resources:
