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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:
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "dormant account" (Banks mentioned in 419 scams are always fake (real banks don't communicate using mobile phones or free webmail addresses))
- "cotonou" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
- 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: Barrister Duggan <l.office494@laposte.net>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 14:29:32 +0100
Subject: CAN I TRUST YOU?
MATHEW DUGGAN
Add: 01 BP 2046 Cotonou
Industrial Quatier Des Elites,
République du Bénin
Private: Tel: +22966011797
Private E-mail: (b.mathewduggan@live.com)
My Dearest.
How are you today? Hope fine. My name is Mathew Duggan from Benin Republic; i am one of the Directors of Group Bank Atlantique Benin Republic, can we have a deal. in my bank there is an account that have been under dormant account for 10 year now and the owner is death living no NEXT OF KIN to his account. And I have a link of transferring this money to another account. I am contacting you to present you as the NEXT OF KIN to our customer so that you can provide me an account outside my country where the money will be transferred.
my dear is a deal for you. are you in or not? 60% to me and 40% to you. if you are interested in these deal, give me the bellow information about you so that i will give you more details about these account. I need your help to transfer the sum of 23 Million U.S.D only. Left by my late client. i need your urgent respond to my private email address: (b.mathewduggan@live.com) to enable me give you more details.
1) YOUR FULL NAME:_______________
2) YOUR AGE:______________________
3) YOUR TELLPHONE NUMBER:______
4) YOUR OCCUPATION:_____________
5) YOUR PRIVATE ADDRESS:___
Yours sincere,
Dr. Mathew Duggan member of the
Managing Director of foreign operations
Foreign remittances department
GROUP BANK ATLANTIQUE BENIN
Website: http://www.banqueatlantique.net
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Anti-fraud resources:
