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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 message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "HSBC Bank plc" (may be fake)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:32:49 +0200
Subject: HSBC Bank plc
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HSBC Bank has been receiving complaints
from our customers for unauthorised use of the HSBC Online accounts.
As a result we periodically review HSBC Online Accounts and temporarily restrict access of those accounts which we think are vunerable to the unauthorised use.
This message has been sent to you from HSBC Bank because we have noticed invalid login attempts into your account, due to this we are temporarily limiting and restricting your account access until we confirm your identity.
To confirm your identity and remove your account limitation please following the link below.
http://www.hsbc.co.uk
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Accounts Management As outlined in our
User Agreement, HSBC will
periodically send you information about site changes and
enhancements.
Visit our Privacy Policy and User
Agreement if you have any questions.
http://www.HSBC.com/help/index.html
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Anti-fraud resources:
