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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:
- "power of attorney" (with your bank details and a power of attorney form criminals sometimes empty bank accounts)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
- Barristers (lawyers) mentioned in 419 scams are always fake.
Fraud email example:
From: Edward Alex <edwardalex529@gmail.com>
Reply-To: alejandromayorkas056@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:32:10 +0100
Subject: Attention
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Dear beneficiary I want to let you that we receive another email right
now from a young man called Mr. Johnson Henry he said that you got an
accident and died yesterday that before you died in the hospital you
gave him the power of attorney to inherit your fund worth $90 million
USD dollars in our custody and he said that he is ready to pay for the
VAT charge duty so that we can hand over the fund to him, we need a
confirmation to this and if we do not hear from you within a couple of
6 hours we are going to take the action by handing him over the
fund.Remember to send him your Full information to avoid wrong
transfer such as: Receiver's Name___ Address: ____ Country: Phone
Number: _ I.D Card:_____ Best Regard Contact Name:Alejandro Mayorkas
Director of Homeland security
)https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Mayorkas&ved=2ahUKEwjT4Mzsj_37AhW5SKQEHWNhBj0QFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2-CbM7cIc5DiqrdUW3xf71
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Anti-fraud resources:
