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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 next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: Mrs Annie H Kim <nathanantushi@gmail.com>
Reply-To: mrsanniehyeminkim@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2023 17:20:40 +0000
Subject: Greetings
Greetings,
I am writing you this mail because of my late client who has the same last
name as you. My late client died in a car accident. His relatives whom I
cannot contact because he showed no will, and he came to my country as a
small child. I need to do this because I don't want the bank to shove my
client's money into the bank vault as an unclaimed inheritance. The amount
is $6.8 million and 250 kg of gold deposited in the bank's security
department for safekeeping.
He died with no close relatives registered as next of kin. And as such, the
fund has an open beneficiary mandate. Luckily you both have the same last
name. So it's very easy to make you his next of kin. If you are interested,
please let me know. So that I can give you exhaustive details of what we
need to do.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs Annie Hyemin Kim
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Anti-fraud resources:
