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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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:
- "uk national lottery" (can only win this lottery if you bought a ticket)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- ",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)
- 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 free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- onlineclaimscontact@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "Promotion Department" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <onlineclaimscontact@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 16:43:29 +0530
Subject: Ref No:NKP:2551256003/23.
The UK NATIONAL LOTTERY ANNEX. Congratulate you as one of our Ten (10)Star
Prize Winner in our 2013 International Awareness Promotion (IAP) held in
Man City, United Kingdom. The selection process was carried out through random selection in
our Computerized Email Selection System (C.E.S.S.) from a database of over a
million email addresses from the worldwide web. Each email address was
attached to a ticket number and your email address with ticket
number:5647600545188 and serial number:UKA/556543450906 was randomly
selected.This makes you a winner of a cash prize of 1,000,000.00 (One
Million Great British pounds} For claims of your winning prize contact:
Mr.Adams Jefferson on:E-mail:onlineclaimscontact@gmail.com
Phone:+448719746217
Contact him, with your, Serial No:UKKN/556543450906 and Ref No:
NKP:2551256003/23.
Also provide listed information below:
Names:-----------------------------------------
Address:---------------------------------------
Age:-------------------------------------------
Sex:-------------------------------------------
Occupation:-------------------------------------
Mobile numbers:--------------------------------------
Fax number:-------------------------------------
Country:----------------------------------------
Marital status:----------------------------------
Next of Kin:----------------------------------------
Won Before:-------------------------------------
Note:Any person below 18 yrs of age is
prohibited to partake in this promo.
Congratulations once more, and keep
trusting THE NATIONAL LOTTERY company
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Anti-fraud resources:
