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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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!
- 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.
- info-citi-bank.uk@accountant.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: Anna Grey <pikabriedis900@gmail.com>
Reply-To: annagreysecretary@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2022 18:15:48 +0100
Subject: You have won the lottery
Dear email owner,
Your e-mail address was among the lucky winners of the selected email
addresses, which this year won from the USA Missouri Lottery national
game 2022 Award.
Missouri Lottery game prize was sponsored and organized by Yahoo and
Microsoft in the United States of America and your email address is
among the lucky winners in a random World Wide Web computerized draw
system, extracted from over a million companies and individual email
addresses of the people that are active online your email address is
one of the Selected Winners.
Your winning prize Award fund is $2. 4 Million which is in the bank
custody in your favor. The result was out on Saturday, Feb 12, 2022
and your winning ticket numbers are 10-17-36-38-40-41 you can check it
on this link https://www.lotteryusa.com/missouri/lotto/year and I
advise you to send your winning ticket numbers 10-17-36-38-40-41 to
Citibank UK through email info-citi-bank.uk@accountant.com to
enable you to receive your funds worth $2.4 Million through their
online bank account and your VISA CARD will be sent to you through
express delivery service to your home or through Online bank transfer.
Thanks as I wait to hear from you.
Anna Grey
Lottery Agent
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Anti-fraud resources:
