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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:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Martin Stockert <hieronim.woniak@neostrada.pl>
Reply-To: mstockert1@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2010 05:05:29 -0700
Subject: Business Proposal
Dear Friend,
I am wriing to you regarding this proposal due to certain conditions =
about my employment contract with my present company.
My proposal is buying and selling. The commodity is Crude Palm Oil.=
=20
Our company is interested in buying 1000 MT of CPO for the start; the=
purchase could increase to 12, 500 MT.=20
I have a supplier in Malaysia who sells at the rate of $ 490/MT. The =
company I work for could pay as much as $700/MT.
If you are interested, I will introduce you to our company as the sup=
plier so that our company can contact you directly for the purchase, =
then I will give you the contact of the Malaysia supplier. But you mu=
st make sure that our company does not have any direct contact with t=
he original supplier in Malaysia so that we wouldn=92t stand the risk=
of losing out on this deal.
I will be waiting for your kind response
Regards
Martin Stockert
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Anti-fraud resources:
