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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: "BARR PAUL EMEKA" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <barrpaulemeka0@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:45:49 -0700
Subject: My Name is Barrister Paul Emeka personal Attorney to one late Mr. Peter Craig a national of your country, he died on his way to a seminar in auto crash on the 10th day of October 2007. My late client was the Chief Executive officer of {African development Oil Company} for 25 years and he was retired on the 30th day of September 2006.I want to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since I dont want the government to confiscate this fund, we will share the USD$7.5million dollars on 50% 50% basis one
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Anti-fraud resources:
