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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.
- 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.
- gary.quinlan@australiamail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "Australia Online Lottery" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <infoprojects04@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 08:37:42 -0700
Subject: Your Lottery Winnings Is Approved For Release
Australia Online Lottery
INC.5TH Floor East
Commonwealth Centre
Adelaide Sa 5000, South Australia
TICKET FREE/ONLINE E-MAIL ADDRESS WINNING NOTIFICATION:
Are you the owner of this e-mail address? if yes,then congratulations!
We are pleased to inform you that your email was selected among the winning numbers of the recently conducted Lotto from the Australia Online Power-Ball Lottery Company.
This lotto is part of a tax relief program set up by the Government in conjunction with the Australia International Lottery Board and Power-Ball Company.
In case you are thinking of how you won without procuring a ticket, then know again that this very draw in which you emerged a winner is a free ticket online email address draws winnings where millions of email addresses are collected from world websites and used for the online draws/sweepstakes.
During the winners selection, your email address came out among the first ten winners which won you the lottery in the first winnings category and entitles you to the sum of AUD$17.5 Million.
Below are the identification numbers needed to claim the winning amount
Ticket Number.........085-12876077-09
Serial Number........51390-0
Ref Number........YR12-805-093AU
Lucky/Winning Number........8-15-19-21-33-36-3
In order to process your winnings, its important that you forward the following information to the PAYOUT MANAGER ( Gary Quinlan).
1 Your Name: Surname/Middle Name/ Other Name
2. Telephone/Mobile Numbers
3. Residential Address
You are to contact the PAYOUT MANAGER via email so that your winnings can be released to you without delay.
Name: Gary Quinlan
Email Address: gary.quinlan@australiamail.com
Congratulations again and contact the payout manager for the release of your winnings.
Yours Sincerely
Walter Alston.
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Anti-fraud resources:
