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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: "Mr. Eric Williams" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ericwilliams3@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 00:04:05 -0700
Subject: Re: Business Opportunity
Good Day,
I am using my personal email to discuss with you about a lucrative business opportunity and it is going to be for our mutual benefit. It cannot affect your professional business and it does not need your traveling anywhere hence it can be done on telephone.
Actually, our Firm deals on generating of Energy and Steel production. There is one substance call Synthetic Coal mixture (SCM) which we used for the coal mixture in order to get a perfect Energy generation/steel production. Our company normally purchases it from one company in China but unfortunately the company we used to purchase the products has closed since six months and our company has run short of the Synthetic Coal Mixture.
I was privileged to locate a company in Turkey that has the products (Synthetic Coal Mixture) and they sell the product at the rate of€100 Euros per kilogram while our company used to buy it from China at the rate of €250 Euros per kilogram. The deal now is that our purchasing manager wants me to give him the contact of the company so that he can purchase direct from the company. If I give him the contact of the company he will purchase direct from the company at the rate of €100 Euros per kilogram while I have told him €250 Euros per kilogram as of the price we used to buy from China.
Please I need your cooperation and understanding so that you will stand as the seller of the products and you will sell the product at the rate of €250 Euros per kilogram while you buy from the company at the rate of €100 Euros per kilogram. Both of us will have to share the profit of €150 Euros per kilogram of each kilogram 50-50. This is a long time transaction which may last for years and I know each purchase order should be up to 3000kg. Kindly think about the proposal and if you are interested please get back to me immediately because it is urgent.
This proposal shall be strictly between me and you.
Thanks for your audience.
Mr. Eric Williams.
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