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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: "Ms. Sarah Harvey" <saraharvey157@gmail.com>
Reply-To: sarah.harvey@collector.org
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2016 05:55:54 +0900
Subject: Business Partnership
Dear Sir,
Your contact was reached from a reliable directory.
Kindly give me an investment infrastructure survey plan with maximum degree of profit and safety in your country, to enable me provide you with further details of a recent contract payment approval of Thirty Million Euros by European Union Contract Committee for executed PPP Contract reference.
As a member of the EU Contract Committee, I've lobbied and executed the contract and needed a trust account to receive the payment for investment purposes, with an annual profit return of 10% for the period of 10 years.
Your complete cooperation will be highly appreciated.
Regards,
Ms. Sarah Harvey
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Anti-fraud resources:
