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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: Morris Jacob <general010@att.net>
Reply-To: himorris1@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 07:20:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: URGENT ATTENTION;
Hello Friend,
It is my pleasure to communicate this idea to you through this medium believing that you will take your time to properly study the facts contained in the message. I stumbled into an orphan who is being victimized and intimidated over her rightful inheritance of mineral resources by her own distant relatives. We are putting arrangements in place to move her and her inherited gold bars out of Ghana to where she can gain access to freedom and better life. She has 280kg of gold bars left behind by her late biological father and because she is a small girl her relatives want to deny her of her right of inheritance. We are ready to move the gold bars out of Ghana as soon as we get a reliable person who can assist us in receiving the gold bars in arrival. The shipment tracking details will be forwarded to you as soon as we conclude the shipment. We are ready to give you 20% of the total sales of the gold bars for your assistance. Awaits your urgent response.
Best Regards,
Morris Jacob.
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