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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: BMW company <imfprivacy@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mjoy46727@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:10:05 -0700
Subject: Hello Good Day
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BMW LOTTERY DEPARTMENT USA Ellesfield, Avenue, Bracknell, United State
ATTN:BMW Winner,
How are you doing today? I am in receipt of your mail and I must say
that you should count yourself extremely lucky to have emerged as one
of our winners in this year BMW CAR INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION PROGRAM
held in Washington USA.The selection process was carried out through
random selection in our computerized email selection system ( C.E.S.S)
from a database of over millions of phone numbers.And your phone
number was randomly selected along with others from a database of over
million phone number drawn from all the Continents of the world.Each
email address was attached to a ticket number and secret pin code,Your
email address with Reference number BMW: 25513500Ds was selected along
with others as a winners of cash price of $3.m USD (Three millions
united States dollars) and a brand new BMW 2020 x6 (2020 modern).
A certificate of price claims and some vital documents will be sent
along aside your winnings Bank Draft and brand new BMW car .
SCARLT COURIER DELIVERY INT.LTD.USA, has been contracted as your
delivery agent to send your winnings safely to you so get back to us
with your informations Below
1.Your full name:
2.Your full address:
3.Your nearest airport:
4.Your next of King:
5.Phone number:
6.Your Id
7.Your email
Best regards
Mary Joy
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Anti-fraud resources:
