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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:
- "million dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "dear beneficiary," (this SPAM email was probably sent to thousands of people)
- "richard.hilton1@gmx.com" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Rolex Company Ltd" (may be fake)
Reply-To: < richard.hilton1@gmx.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:00:03 +0800
Subject: PARTNERSHIP AND DISTRIBUTOR WANTED
Dear Beneficiary,
I Mr Richard Hilton the CEO of ROLEX COMPANY seeks your partnership in the distribution and marketing of my product in this great season .i will like to employ you as my chief distributor and representative
in your destination.It will be a great deal of opportunity if you accept my proposal,because you will become a well known distributor just in an interval of a week.
The product are already package in cargoes and containers ready to be exported to our representative all around the world for distribution,all representatives will be given goods worth about $4million
dollars in which they are entitled to 30% of the total sales after distribution.I will cargo and ship this goods to all my distributor nation wide as soon as possible,once we reach our mutual agreement.
If you have interest in this business project; correspond to my office with the following details:
1.FULL NAME
2.ADDRESS
3..DATE OF BIRTH
4.OCCUPATION
5.STATUS
6.PHONE:
7:FAX
8:SCAN OF PASSPORT DATA PAGE
Regards
Mr. Richard Hilton
email address:richard.hilton1@gmx.com
visit our website:www.rolex.com
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Anti-fraud resources: