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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: "WebMaster" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <webmaster1010@mail2webmaster.com>
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 21:59:20 +0100
Subject: ****IMPORTANT****update Your email account****
Dear Account Owner:
It has come to our notice that your email has not passed the verification/Update process that we are presently working on. We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account center .We are deleting all Old Web mail email account to create more space for new accounts.. To prevent your account from closing you will have to update it so that we will know that it's a present used account. To complete your account re-confirmation, you must reply to this email immediately and enter your account details as requested below.
***********************************************
Email User-name : ............
EMAIL Password : ...............
Date of Birth : .................
Country or Territory : ............
************************************************
****IMPORTANT :
This updating is compulsory as a result of our recent server changes. If you fail to update your email address you will soon be unable to receive/send mails.Also your email will not be equipped with the latest anti-virus system in our new servers. This will make your email and PC vulnerable to virus attacks from the internet.
****HOW TO UPDATE:
To update simply reply the above to upgrading admin as appropriate. Failure to do so immediately will lead to SUSPENSION OF YOUR ACCOUNT.
Thanks for your co-operation,
Web-mail Administrator
WEB MAIL BETA.
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Anti-fraud resources:
