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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 Upgrade and Maintenance" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <info_info1@web2mail.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:59:03 +0200
Subject: Dear Webmail Subscriber- Account Maintenance and Upgrade.
Dear Webmail Subscriber,
We would like to inform you that we are currently carrying out scheduled maintenance
and upgrade of all webmail service and as a result all email client has been changed
and your original password will be reset. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.
To complete your webmail Email account, you must reply to this email immediately and
enter your webmail password ( )Failure to do this will immediately render your webmail
email address deactivated.
“WEBMAIL SUPPORT TEAM".
*****CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT*****
©WEBMAIL Limited, 2003 - 2010 ABN: 31 088 377 860
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Anti-fraud resources:
