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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:
- "abidjan" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Beatrix Boutique <beatrixboutique@yahoo.co.th>
Reply-To: beatrixboutique@voila.fr
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 23:44:21 +0800
Subject: PURCHASE INQUIRY
Dear Sales,
We are happy to contact you and established long business relationship with you.We are located here in France Europe and we have our branch in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire West Africa.
We will be glad to sell your product in our stores. We will appreciate it if we can buy and ship some items to us in our both locations for our existing customer but payment through our company credit card.
Please send us your catalogue in your next reply.
We look forward to hear from you.
Thanks and Best Regards,
Béatrix Boutique
7 RUE NEUVE SAINT GERMAIN
92100 BOULOGNE BILLANCOURT
TEL: (+33) 612-126-239
COUNTRY: FRANCE
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Anti-fraud resources:
