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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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 fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "uk national lottery" (can only win this lottery if you bought a ticket)
- 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!
- 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.
- frankwilliamchris@hotmail.co.uk (Hotmail, United Kingdom; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
- account no: email attn: to frank william chris at: frankwilliamchris@hotmail.co.uk furthermore, should there be any change of address do (Hotmail; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: "UK National Lottery - From Victoria Brown" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <frankwilliamchris@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 30 May 2010 12:16:16 +0200
Subject: UK National Lottery Prize
UK National Lottery
Dear Lucky Winner
The UK NATIONAL LOTTERY wishes to inform you that you have won the sum of #900.000.00(Nine Hundred Thousand British Pounds. draws was conducted from an exclusive list of 13 lucky emails of individual and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search. No tickets were sold, below is your winning and claim reference information.
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Ticket Nr: TNL 07482148372 97427.
Batch Nr: TNL 97635197437-ZQG/2010.
Security File Nr: 850197731.
Ref Nr: TNL 770270289/ES 957.
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To begin processing your claim you are advice send the below details after completing to your payment processing agent.
Full Name:
Address:
Phone Number
Bank Name:
Address:
Account No:
Email ATTN: to Frank William Chris at: frankwilliamchris@hotmail.co.uk
Furthermore, should there be any change of address do Inform us as soon as possible.
Congratulations
Mrs. Victoria Brown
Winnings Coordinator
Email: mrs.victoriabrown@yahoo.co.uk
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Anti-fraud resources:
