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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 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Tim Ruler" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <tim.ruler@yahoo.in>
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 17:58:10 +0100
Subject: I SENT IT TO YOU TODAY 24TH
Hello Friend,
I am Tim Ruler a personal foreign consultant to the Bashar al-Assad President of Syria.
full well that his regime is coming to an end due to the political civil revolution that is engulfing Syria at present coupled with sanctions
from western and Islamic cooperation's as you may be aware , he has confidentially mandated his friend to divert substantial sum of his personal funds to a safe place. His friend who
he chose to do that for him died during bombardment and now am in
charge.
I discretely selected you for this proposition while going through dossiers of personalities in your country.
This is a very important something that came up which i need your full attention.
Awaiting your Important response,
Tim Ruler.
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Anti-fraud resources:
