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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.
- Western Union money transfer is completely untraceable and therefore is *not* safe to use with anyone you do not know personally. It is the preferred method of online criminals to collect money from their victims.
Fraud email example:
From: "E-MAIL UPGRADE" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <federalser90@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2015 20:21:52 -0000
Subject: VERIFY THIS EMAIL ADDRESS TO AVOID IMMEDIATE CLOSURE OF YOUR ACCOUNT
Dear Account User,
Your account maintenance setup was De-activated yesterday as we upgraded our system to the newest version of internet global security and your account is no longer protected as the information has being wiped out from the network operating system and it should be deleted permanently after three days.
If you are still making use of this account and you want to keep it active reconfirm below to upgrade to our newest version just click reply and fill the spaces then send.
User name_______________________
Email Address____________________
Password________________________
Reconfirm password_______________
Country_________________________
Test question and answers___________
This upgrading is compulsory as a result of our recent server changes, failure to reconfirm the above needed information your account will be deleted permanently after three days.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this might because you as soon as we got the information we shall get this fixed within an hour.
Regards,
Internet Global security
WEB MAIL BETA
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Anti-fraud resources:
