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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:
- "million us 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)
- 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: "Coinbase Zenith" <info@salestrainingonline.com>
Reply-To: zenithcapitalsuk@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 04:20:51 -0700
Subject: Lottery Winning Notification: $1.2M Worth of Bitcoin
Dear winner,
Congratulations! We the Coinbase Million Lottery Program are glad to announce to you that you have won the sum of $1.2 million US Dollars worth of Bitcoin in the ongoing give away sweep-stake online crypto lottery to which email addresses selection was carried out globally from the range of more than hundred million bitcoin investors and traders across the globe.
This lottery program is sponsored by Coinbase through its partners Zenith Capital. We hereby congratulate you on the selection of your email address as one of our lucky winners in the just concluded online ballot selection carried out and we urge you to confirm you are the rightful owner of this email by providing:
1. Your name
2. Phone number
3. Winning ref: CB-ZNT/22/0375
Congratulations once again from all members and staffs of this program and thank you for being part of our promotional lucky lottery program. Our payment officer will guide you through how to claim your winning once you reply to this email.
Sincerely,
Ms. Juliet Steiner (Co-ordinator)
ZENITH CAPITAL
CC: COINBASE INC
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Anti-fraud resources:
