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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:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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: "LAU" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <macaupromo1@yahoo.cn>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:57:01 +0800
Subject: MACAU CASINO END OF THE YEAR CELEBRATION
MACAU CASINO JUMBO DRAW
FOREIGN SERVICES MANAGER,
ASIA PACIFIC CHINA
Customer Service
Ref: MC/7146x4/99
Batch: 132/756/4007
PAYMENT TO MAKE BY ATM CARD ONLY
===========================================
Due to the large profit being earn by the casino and moguls and related tourist attraction here in macau, with revenue running into billions
the promotion council have decided to help stimulate the world economy by email balloting of people that have email in the internet by random selection
and your email is among the selected email and you are qualify to receive the lump sum of usd500,000,00
And due to fraud assocaited with this type of promotion we have instructed all payment to be made through atm card payment so that all winners will be able to
to receive thier fund in thier country and use the atm to withdraw it form any atm in thier respective countries
your winning fall into china agent section
TO CLAIM CONTACT
ROBERT LAU
.Name in full:
2.Address:
3.Nationality:
4.Age:
5.Occupation:
6.Telephone Number:
7.Present Country:
8.Email address:
Send above information in your correspondences with your claims agent.
Sincerely
reply to your agent immediately,
V.P FINANCE
Mr. ROBERT LAU
LOTTO AGENT
macaupromo1@yahoo.cn
info@macaupromo.net
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Anti-fraud resources:
