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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:
- "huge amount of money" (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)
- "million united state dollars" (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)
- "top secret" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- "united state dollar" (this email uses bad English)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Mr Abdul Ahmed <mrabdulahmed05@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: mrabdulahmed@hotmail.fr
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2011 00:14:45 +0530 (IST)
Subject: This Is A Great And Profitable Message From Mr Ahmed Abdul,
Office of the manager auditing and accounting
Bank of African
Ouagadougou Burkina Faso
C/o Mr Abdul Ahmed.
Attention please:
I am the above mentioned name with said office position. I am contacting you regarding a business transaction which I wish to execute with the help of a foreigner. There is an account here in our bank with a credit balance of Fourty Five Million United State Dollars ($45 Million.) this money has been dormant for years and as am talking to you now, this said account is without any beneficiary or heir.
I have explored all options and decided on executing this deal with a foreigner. Now I want to know if you are capable of receiving this huge amount of money into your foreign account and have 40% of it as your share: I will provide every information and materials we will need to back up the claim and ensure that our bank releases the fund to you as the beneficiary to the account.
I have worked out everything before contacting you so you shouldn’t be afraid of anything as we will follow the official way to get the bank to approve the fund to you. I will give you all the details regarding this account and the transfer as soon as I hear from you and please make this proposal a top secret and delete it if you are not interested.
With Best Regards.
Mr Abdul Ahmed.
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Anti-fraud resources:
