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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: "Mrs. Evelyn Johnson" <bom_impdoc@icsagroup.com>
Reply-To: mrs.evelyn@outlook.com
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 14:31:02 -0500
Subject: Glo Lottery Office
The Glo Lottery Incorporated wishes to inform you of the results of the
International email address balloting award program held in London in
conjunction with the Mega Millions Office. Your email account has been
selected as the auspicious champ of One Million Great British pounds
(1,000.000.00)This result is now released for assertion and payment of this
funds to you. Your email address was among the lucky fortunate ones
attached in the B Category selection with successful reference number
Ref:GL-TH/K7Y9.
Please contact Mr.Edward Srilanta at our Asia regional branch where your
balloting numbers fall for disbursement. Email ( gloprize@live.com ) for
your payment. Congratulations and thank you for being part of this year
email account user program.
Best Regards
Mr.Edward Srilanta
Glo Lottery Office United Kingdom.
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Anti-fraud resources:
