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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "top secret" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- "dormant account" (Banks mentioned in 419 scams are always fake (real banks don't communicate using mobile phones or free webmail addresses))
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
- 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.
- cind@post.com (Post; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: "cindy" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <cind@post.com>
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 17:28:11 +0800
Subject: Urgent Assistance
Top secret
My name is Mrs. Cindy I am an executive chief accounting officer with a reputable financial institution here in the Philippines. I and my colleague has been monitoring one of our foreign customer escrow bank account with the sum of US$686.361 six hundred and eighty six thousand three hundred and sixty one dollars that belong to one India national for the past 5years and the account holder has never came forward or operate his a/c for all this years .
With our investigation we just find out that this customer was deported back to India 5yrs ago and his name blacklisted by immigration department for some dubious crime which mean he will never be allow to entering the Philippines forever.
I and my colleague who is aware of this fund have decided to look for someone outside the Philippines who could help us to pull this money out of the Philippines as next of kin to the a/c holder.
We are presently looking for reliable obedient personality with good behavior to entrust this fund, a person who will not cheat us at the end of this deal.
I will submit to you the claims request and latest statement of account in due course.
Bear in mind this account has been dormant for five years and according to our internal banking laws it stipulated that any foreigner account holder in the Philippines that fails to operate his or her account for five years will be automatically move to a dormant account and will be frozen and re-direct back to the central bank of Philippines but because I and my colleague has been monitoring this a/c for a long time we put some clause to it and for that reason the a/c has no record with central bank to enable us pull out the money quickly without trace and knowledge of the central bank.
The account name will be mention later and we will also discuss about the shearing upon receiving your acknowledgement letter.
Am requesting your good effort to present yourself as the provisional next of kin and pls this has to do with top secret and it is risk free deal as the fund is under our control me and my colleague only...
If this deal interests you, pls kindly send me your complete Name /Age/Address/Phone number and if You think that you are not capable of handling this business and from your heart kindly delete this email as soon as you receive it.
You can call me on this number below and always mention C5 as soon as I pick my phone because this number is exclusive for this business and without mentioning this code please is sorry I will not answer you.
Urgent attention will be appreciated
Regards
Cindy
Call to my number+632-5687099 or email me cind@post.com
Security code C5
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