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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 fake company names, fake addresses, non-existent institutions/documents or other details have appeared in scams before:
- "the bmw automobile company" (no such lottery exists)
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "thebmw@live.co.uk" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
- 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 mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
- +447045790687 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
Fraud email example:
From: "THE BMW AUTOMOBILE UK" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <thebmw@live.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:26:13 -0700
Subject: Comfirmation E-mail From The BMW Automobile UK
The Board of Directors, members of staff and the International Awareness Promotion Department of the BMW Automobile Company congratulate you on your success as one of our TEN(10) STAR PRIZE WINNER in this year' International Awareness Promotion (IAP) 2010 held in LONDON.
Your email address was randomly selected along with nine others from a database of over 1,000,000 email addresses drawn from the WORLD-WIDE-WEB.
This makes you the proud owner of a brand new BMW 7 Series, M Sport Saloon
car and a cash prize of (£500,000GBP)
Kindly fill the verification form below and send it to Mr.David Williams.our claims department manager through email.
He has been mandated to offer you assistance and facilitate the urgent delivery of your prizes.
Mr.Mr.David Williams.
Claims Manager LONDON.
Email: thebmw@live.co.uk
Phone: +447045790687
1.) FULL NAME:
2.) AGE:
3.) SEX:
4.) ADDRESS:
5.) STATE/PROVINCE:
6.) COUNTRY:
7.) PHONE:
8.) OCCUPATION/POSITION:
9.) COMPANY:
10.) ANNUAL INCOME:
11.) Ref No: BMW:2551256003/23.
12.) SERIAL No: BMWP/556543450906.
13.)tagged ticket No: 5647600545188
ENJOY YOUR WINNINGS!!!.
Engr. Larry Raymond
Promo Co-ordinator
BMW Automobile.
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Anti-fraud resources:
