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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:
- "dear beneficiary," (this SPAM email was probably sent to thousands of people)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Jorge Mentus <2591tylerran203@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mail.stellasabine@online.ee
Date: Sat, 8 May 2021 08:21:46 +0100
Subject: Dear beneficiary
Dear beneficiary,
I refer to the letter I posted to your address but did not hear from you
and decided to email you once again. We happily announce to you that your
direct award winning allocation worth of $850,000.00 dollars has been
approved by the Arcus foundation and The approval of the funds came in
collaboration with the European association for Public administration
accreditation. Your money is now loaded into a bank debit card which you
can use to withdraw cash from any automated teller machines anywhere in the
world. For more information and delivery of your debit card, kindly contact
our regional Zonal coordinator through the following email address: (
mail.stellasabine@online.ee) Regional Zonal Coordinator: Mrs. Stella Sabine.
Regards,
Jorge Mentus
Payments Committee - European Commission.
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Anti-fraud resources:
