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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!
Fraud email example:
From: "NATIONALE POSTCODE LOTERIJ" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <belgiumpostcodeloto@outlook.com>
Date: Sat, 24 May 2014 17:43:35 +0200
Subject: NATIONAL POSTCODE LOTTERY
Nationale Post Code Loterij
Avenue de Bruselxstraat 115-117
1150 Brussel - Belgium
We write to congratulate you for being one of our lucky winners in our Euro Million Post Code Nationale Loterij Program.
You did not purchase a Lottery Ticket to participate in this Lottery Program. Email addresses were generated electronically and numbers attached to your email address is: Reference Number: Bx20813/253/Be. Batch Number: Be2133.055/2014. Lucky Number: 5.33.36.38.47*4*9.
With the help of a computer Balloting system, the email addresses were scrutinized and your email address emanated as one of the (10) Ten lucky winners of €1,500.000.00.
Kindly contact our Head Office with the information below for details:
Contact Person: Sebastiaan Volkers
Claim Processiing Officer
Tel: 0032 486 40 9770
Fax: 0032 486 40 9770
belgiumpostcodeloto@outlook.com
Do contact Our Claim Office by telephone or email, with your winning information, to discuss with him on how your Lottery winning prize will be paid to you.
We wish to congratulate you for your winnings!
Sincerely,
Gwen Jones
Nationale Post Code Loterij.
http://www.lotto.be
all rights reserves © 2011 Nationale Loterij ATIONALE POSTCODE LOTERIJ.
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Anti-fraud resources:
