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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: "Webmail Account Service Team Management" <info@info.com>
Reply-To: upgrade-corporation@live.com
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 03:37:53 +0800
Subject: Update Your E-mail Account Now.
Attn: Account owner
This message is from web mail admin messaging center to all web mail account
owners. We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account center.
We are canceling unused web mail email account to create more space for
new accounts.
To prevent your account from closing you will have to update
it below to know it's status as a currently used account.
CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW Account Details
***********************************************
Email User-name :........ .....
EMAIL Password :...............
Date of Birth :...............
Country or Territory :........
************************************************
Warning!!! Any account owner that refuses to update his/her
account within Three days of this update notification will loose his/her
account permanently.
You have limited time to supply the above details for effective services
by
replying to this email and any delay or incorrect username or password,
may
cause our server to automatically log you out from our system.
Thank you.
Regards,
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Anti-fraud resources:
