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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 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!
Fraud email example:
From: Smith Moore <anonymousfox-d3mve@jewelmanikyam.com>
Reply-To: smithmoore2209@outlook.com
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2021 11:06:41 +0000
Subject: you are among our 50 lucky winners!
My name is Smith Moore and I work with Instagram  as a Senior Online rep.
I’m  contacting you because I have good news for you from Instagram.
Have you heard about the ongoing Instagram New Year & Pandemic Giveaway?
I am pleased to inform you that your name among the 50 lucky winners
who won $320,000,00 (Three Hundred and Twenty Thousand United States
Dollars) each on the Instagram New Year Giveaway.
The online draws was conducted by a random selection of emails related
to Instagram accounts you were picked by an advanced automated random
computer search from Instagram in other to claim your $320,000 in the
Giveaway program which is a new innovation by Instagram, is aimed at
saying a big thank you to all our users for making Instagram their
number one means to connect, communicate, relate and hook up with
their families and friends over the years.
This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and
unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants and scam
artists. All participants were selected through a computer ballot
system drawn from Instagram. This promotional program takes place
every two years. You may be rest assured that this is real and legal
with a prove.
Smith Moore.
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Anti-fraud resources:
