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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 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "Email Support Team" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <mike.scholl@9.cn>
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:41:57 -0000
Subject: Upgrade Maintenance All Webmail/Email Subscribers.
Attn. Webmail/Email Subscribers
We regret to announce to you that we will be making some vital maintainance on our Webmail/Email accounts. During this process you might have login problems in signing into your Webmail/Email account, but to prevent this you have to confirm your Webmail/Email account immediately after you receive this notification.
To confirm and to keep your Webmail/Email active during and after this process, please reply to this message with the below Webmail/Email account information's. Failure to do this might cause a permanent deactivation of your Webmail/Email account from our database to enable us create more spaces for up coming subscribers. Send your Webmail/Email account for confirmation stating:
Email Address:
Password:
Your account shall remain active after you have successfully confirmed your account details. We thank you for your prompt attention to this notification. Please be informed that this is a security measure intended to help protect your Webmail/Email account{s}. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Webmail/Email Technical Support
Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved.
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Anti-fraud resources:
