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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 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 mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
- +34665124961 (Spain, prepaid mobile phone)
Fraud email example:
From: "EURO MILLION PROMOTIONS" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ocaso-seguros@administrativos.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:29:41 +0200
Subject: EURO MILLION PROMOTIONS
Attn: Internet user!!!
Congratulations!!!, This is to notify you that this e-mail address was enter during the Euro Million Lottery selection Draw 2009 and has won the sum of €750,000.00.
The online cyber draws was conducted from an exclusive list of 500,000 email addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random online selection from the web. No tickets were sold.
=====================================================
Your email address is attached to Ref Nº: ESP/WIN/008/06/10/MA & Batch Nº: EURO/1007/444/606/09; Serial Nº: 45407; and Promotion Date: 11th July 2009.
For claim please contact the below agent for immediate process of your claim.
Remember to quote these numbers below for verification by the Company,
=====================================================
Your Reference Number: ESP/WIN/008/05/10/MA
Your Batch Number: EURO/1007/444/606/09. And you should include:
Your Full Name:
Your Home Address:
Your Sex:
Your Age:
Your Occupation:
Your Nationality:
Your Telephone Number:
Your Mobile Number:
Your Fax Number:
OCASO. SEGUROS. S .A
Contact: Mr. Alfonso Nacho (Your Assigned Agent)
Tel: +34-66-512-4961
Fax: +3 493-550-4498
Email: ocaso_seguros@luckymail.com
=================================
Bear in mind that prizes will strictly be remitted to winners that officially file in for their claim within the given time frame.
Congratulations once again from all our staff.
Best regards,
Dr. Jonathan Antonio Gomez.
Euro Million Lottery Co-ordinator Madrid.
Note: All Won Prize must be claimed/ cleared not later than. 10/08/2009. After this date, all other winnings will considered as UNCLAIMED and returned to ministerio de Economia Y Hacienda
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Anti-fraud resources:
