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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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.
- 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.
- chothiahmedyusuf@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "Chothia Ahmed Yusuf" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <chothiahmedyusuf@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 00:05:43 +0100
Subject: Payment Approval
How are you doing today.
Please if after reading and you are not interested, do not disclose details to anybody because the people concerned are top and influence officials and do not want their image to be dented. It happened that my client a contractor from your country by the name Engr. Miroslav, was awarded a contract by the South African government under Contract Project Review Commission of the Republic of South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, he completed the contract on 3rd of April 2010 and was given a payment approval order to be paid on the 17th of May 2010.
But, He did not live to collect the balance of the contract sum as we learn he died on a plane crash with his family in Tripoli Libya on the 12th of May 2010. Following the incident, the Republic of South African Government through their Contract Project Review Commission mandated that I must present my late clients next of kin who would be the beneficiary to the contract sum as contained in the contract file with Ref: CPRC/RSA/FGC/10. To my greatest surprise, his next of kin was with him in the crashed flight in Tripoli Libya.
I and top three members of the Commission decided to seek your partnership to act as the beneficiary and provide a bank account for the transfer with the intention of sharing it among us as they're not alive to lay claim of this contract amount. We need your acceptance letter as soon as possible before the Government decide on returning this sum back to the government treasury account as unclaimed bill.
Anticipating your response.
Kind Regards.
Chothia Ahmed Yusuf
SEND YOUR REPLY TO THIS E-mail: chothiahmedyusuf@gmail.com
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