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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: "service@intl.paypal.com" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <service@intl.paypal.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:33:56 -0000
Subject: Notification of limited account access
<html><body>
<table width="65%">
<img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/logo/paypal_logo.gif" border=0><br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>Dear valued PayPal member,<br><br>
It has come to our attention that your PayPal account information needs to be
updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to
reduce the instance of fraud on our website.<br><br>
If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update
your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.<br><br>
However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension.
Please update your records on or before January 2010.<br><br>
Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be
interrupted and will continue as normal.<br><br><br>
To update your PayPal records click on the following link:<br>
<a href="http://203.153.34.90/intl.paypal.com/www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/intl.paypal.dll/index.php?http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run" target=_blank><b>http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run</b></a><br><br><br>
Thank you,<br>
PayPal Security Advisor.<br><br>
<font color="#777777" size=1>Copyright 1999-2009 PayPal. All rights reserved.
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Anti-fraud resources:
