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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: "Mail Administrator" <wall@plusnet.pl>
Reply-To: upgrade_team@nba2k.com.cn
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 09:18:41 +0100 (CET)
Subject: Dear (Account Users)
Dear (Account Users),
This message is from E-mail messaging center to all our email account
users. We are currently conducting a maintenance exercise which is for
upgrading our database and e-mail account center. This exercise involves
the deactivation of dormant /unused/ invalid email accounts to make room
for further upgrading.
To confirm the validity of your email and to prevent your account from
deactivation, you are advised to update it by proving us with the
following information manually.
CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW:
YOUR NAME:........................
YOUR EMAIL:.......................
PASSWORD:.........................
VERIFY PASSWORD...................
Warning!!!
Account owners are expected to update their accounts within 2 days after
receipt of this notice. Failure to comply with this notice within the
stipulated time will face the risk of loosing his or her account.
Copyright © 2011 . All rights reserved.
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