419 scam: "MRS REGINA SMITH"<infowide@microword.com> MICROWORD AWARD NOTIFICATION

joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet

Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days

Home

About Us

Spam

419/Nigeria

Fraud

Contact

"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:
1. They don't notify winners by email.
2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
7. 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.
- microwordcoperations@yahoo.com.hk

Fraud email example:

From: "MRS REGINA SMITH" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <microwordcoperations@yahoo.com.hk>
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:09:33 +0200
Subject: MICROWORD AWARD NOTIFICATION

MICROWORD CORPORATIONS:
CUSTOMER SERVICE, MADRID SPAIN
REFERENCE NUMBER: SUN/ESP/E-6587
BATCH NUMBER: 2008/430/CA
LINK :http://www.microword.com/

OFFICIAL WINNING NOTIFICATION.

We are pleased to inform you of the released results of the Sweepstakes Promotion organized by Microword Corporations,
in conjunction with the foundation for the promotion of software products,held this april, 2009 here in Madrid,Spain.
Where your email address emerged as one of the online winning emails, in the 3rd category and therefore attracted a cash
award of 450,000.00 (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Euros Only) and a Toshiba laptop.To begin your claim, file the release
of your winning by contacting our Foreign Transfer Manager via email or by telephone below.

Mr. Bobby Williams
Tel/ 0034 634071652
Fax/ 0034 911 817 496
E-mail: microwordcoperations@yahoo.com.hk
Email: microwordcoperations_cashyour-won@live.com

This Email Lottery is sponsored by Microword Corporations and all the members of MSFT Word Resource Consortium Software
Promotion Companies including Intel Group, Toshiba and Dell Computers. This internet E-mail draw is held periodically and
is organized to encourage the use of the Internet and promote computer
literacy worldwide.

Congratulations!!

Sincerely,

Mrs.Regina Smith
Promotions Manager

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam