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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "million dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
- They don't notify winners by email.
- You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
- They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
- They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
- They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
- They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
- They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
- 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.
- deptun@126.com (126; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: "U.N ORG " <>
Reply-To: deptun@126.com
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2017 01:46:53 -0400
Subject: RE: ?
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ($5,000,000.00 USD) for the June Edition 2017 Lottery promotion which is organized by UNITED NATIONS ONLINE PROMO, collects all the email addresses of people that are active online in Bangladesh, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo and Hotmail we only select five people every Month as our winners through electronic balloting System without the winner applying, we Congratulate you for being one of the people selected.
PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM
You are to contact your Claims Agent with immediate effect to facilitate the protocol of your winning prize before the expiry date of Claim; Winners shall be paid in accordance with his/her Settlement Center. Prize must be claimed not later than 15 days from date of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has won. Any prize not claimed within this period will be forfeited. These are your identification numbers:
Batch number....................23/7/8092
Ref number.......................Ref: UN-L/200-26937
Winning number...................0923/UN
To begin your claim please contact our licensed and Accredited agent assigned to you
MR DONALD DANIEL
(UN VERIFICATION DEPARTMENT MANAGER)
Email: deptun@126.com
You are therefore advised to send the following information to the claims agent to help facilitate the claims of your prize.
1. Full name............
2. Country..............
3. Contact Address........
4. Telephone Number........
5. Marital Status.........
6. Occupation.............
7. Company..............
8. Age....................
Please Note:UN Lottery Prize must be claimed not later than 15 days from date of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has won. Any prize not claimed within this period will be forfeited.
Congratulations!! Once again.
Yours in service,
Mrs Beatrice Morgan
(Operation Manager)
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Anti-fraud resources:
