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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: ELIZABETH HEE <sgtkbtrust@gmail.com>
Reply-To: elizabethhee@outlook.com
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2017 06:08:33 -0800
Subject: Dear Counsel,
--
Dear Counsel,
My name is Elizabeth Hee. I am contacting your firm in regards to a
divorce settlement with my ex husband ( Nawoo Hee ) who resides in
your jurisdiction. I live in Canada. We had a court agreement for him
to pay $578,000.00 plus legal
fees. He has only paid me $78,000.00USD since.
I am hereby seeking your firm to represent me in collecting the
balance from him. He has agreed already to pay me the balance but it
is my belief that a Law firm like yours is needed to help me collect
this payment from my ex-husband or
litigate this matter if he fails to pay as promised.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Hee .
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Anti-fraud resources: