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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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 free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- winningeffect@yahoo.co.jp (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: loto win <lotery112@att.net>
Reply-To: winningeffect@yahoo.co.jp
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:06:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: You won lotto
Yahoo & Windows Live Awards Center
124 Stockport Road, Long sight, Manchester M60 2DB - United Kingdom FROM THE OFFICE OF REVEREND PHILIPE DALAKIS
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of Four Million Two undred Great Britain pounds (GBP4,200, 000.00) for the last quarter 2010 prize promotion which is organised by YAHOO AWARDS & WINDOWS LIVE.
YAHOO collects all the email addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo and Hotmail and few from other email providers. for testionies view the following wesite http://www.sportstoto.com.my/ AND http://www.magnum4d.com.my/ Three people are selected monthly to benefit from this promotion and you are of the Select Winners. Winners shall be paid in accordance with their Settlement Centers. Yahoo Prize Award must be claimed not later that 30days from date of Draw Notification. Any prize not claimed within this period will be forfeited and returned to it source as unclaimed.
Stated below are your identification numbers. BATCH NUMBER: MFI/06/APA-43658 REFERENCE NUMBER: 2007234522 PIN: 1207 You are requested to contact our co-ordinator in Manchester and send your winning identification numbers to him. You are advise only to contact the Co-ordinator on the emails below:
Email: winningeffect@yahoo.co.jp
Name:Revrend Phliipe Dalakis you are advise only to contact on the emails above. You are advised to send the following information to our co-ordinator to facilitate the release of your fund to you:
Full names: ........................
Country: ............................
Contact address: ....................
Telephone number: ..................
Fax number: ........................
Marital status: ....................
Occupation: ........................
Sex: ................................
Date of birth: .....................
Yours in Service,
Mrs. Stephanie Stewart.
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