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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 phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "may come to you as a surprise" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "to your nominated bank account" (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)
- "hundred thousand us dollars" (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)
- "00,000.00" (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 next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: "Mr.Andre Martinez" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <operations@biotec-meid.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:28:55 +0200
Subject: Request.
Dear friend.
I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise.I got your address through a local Business directory on the web.I must apologize for taking some of your valuable time to explain a proposal that I believe will be of utmost benefit to us. I am manager of bill and exchange at the foreign operation remittance department Bank of spain. In mydepartment we discovered an abandoned sum of $11,300,000.00 USD( Eleven Million Three Hundred Thousand US Dollars)in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in a missing Malaysia Airline Flight MH 370 .
Since the bank got information about his death we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release the fund unless somebody that as the same last name with him applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines and laws guideline here stipulates that if such money remains unclaimed after five years,such money will be moved into the banking treasurer as unclaimed fund.
So i decided to contact you to act as the next of kin because you have the same last name with the deceased and that will make it easy .
. 25% of the total money will be for you as a next of kin while 5% will be set asite to cover any expenses that might be incurd during the process of transfering the fund to your nominated bank account.
If you're willing to handle this deal with me kind get back to me with your Private telephone and fax numbers for easy communication/your personal picture to enable me know whom i'm dealling with.I will send to you the application form which you will use to apply directly to the bank.
Note:I demand the hightest trust from you to keep this business Strictly confidential for security reasons as you may know that the bank don't know that i am the one who contacted you to stand for this claim. Get back to me on my private email: operations@biotec-meid.com
Best regards,
Mr.Andre Martiñez.
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