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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.
- The following fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "national lottery promotion" (no such lottery exists)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "fiduciary agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "foreign service manager" (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.
- mrwilliam.boyd@hotmail.com (Hotmail; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: Mr. William Boyd <farrellfrank026@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mrwilliam.boyd@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 02:44:57 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Att: lucky winner you have won The National Lottery
The National Lottery
Congratulations! Winning Notification!
UK online international Lottery Award Prize of £820,731.00 (Eight Hundred and Twenty
Thousand, Seven Hundred and Thirty One British Pounds).
Email Account Owner,
Congratulations!! We are happy to announce that you have won an online lottery prize in our
international lottery promotion.
Your active e-mail address attached to computer generated ticket number: BH 05607545
7152 withreference number UK/KA2C110EN5 has won UK Lottery 2nd category award prize.
Contact our Fiduciary agents immediately to commence release of your lottery prize by
providing details as listed below.
1. Full Name:
2. Email Address:
3. Age/Occupation:
4. Reference Number/Ticket Number
5 Phone Number:
6. Country:
7. Date of draw
UK Lottery Fiduciary Agents:
Mr. William Boyd
Foreign Service Manager
Watford Regional Centre
Tolpits Lane, Watford WD18 9RN .United Kingdom
E-mail: mrwilliam.boyd@hotmail.com
Thank you and Congratulation once again!
Yours faithfully,
Angela M. Johnson.
(Online coordinator)
The UK Lottery International Promotion Inc
All winning must be claimed not later than 15 DAYS. After this date all unclaimed funds
will be returned to European Union treasury as unclaimed.
"Please do not reply back to the senders address or the from email address, this notification is sent automatically via computer virtual
notification to winning email addresses and a response will not be attended by Human but computer" contact the fiduciary agents as
above "
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Anti-fraud resources:
