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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 office" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "00,000.00" (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)
- "powerballgames018@live.co.uk" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
- 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: POWERBALL LOTTERY BOARD <maria.nogueira@ist.utl.pt>
Reply-To: powerballgames018@live.co.uk
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:28:18 +0000
Subject:
Dear Consolation Prize Winner,
This email confirms that you have been notified by the POWERBALL
Online Lottery Board in England of your email lottery winning for 2010
Powerball Lotto - Wheel E-game held for 2010.
Prize Amount: pound;800,000.00 Eight Hundred Thousand Pounds Only.
To file in for your Claims you are required to contact the Lottery
Claims Processing Officer and send to us this following information
below.
POWERBALL LOTTERY BOARD
Lottery Claims Officer
Name:Mr John sherma
Email;powerballgames018@live.co.uk
CLAIMS PROCESSING INFORMATIONS.
FULLNAME:...................................................................
FORWARDING
ADDRESSE:.........................................................
CITY/STATE:.......................
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:.......................
MARITAL STATUS:.....................
NATIONALITY.............
SEX...........
PHONE NUMBER......................
OCCUPATION....................
Congratulations once again from all our staffs on your consolation
prize winning, we hope you will partake in our forth coming Power ball
Lotto-Wheel Email-games.
Yours truly,
Mrs Florence Godeau
(Lottery Co-ordinator)
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Anti-fraud resources:
