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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: "Farziah Md Nor" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <Farziah@live.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 17:28:39 +0800
Subject: Hey
My dear,
I'm Malaysian and my name is Farziah,am in the hospital due to my cancer and my doctor told me that I will die in less three months time so as the treatments is going on am looking of a friend who can take up my charity project that I have be wanting to start but at this moment I cannot do it since I have a severe case of Esophagus cancer.I would like to leave my life savings for a humanitarian organization or an individual who s' willing to come up with a charity organization to cater for the less fortunate kids and orphans who have lost their parents due to natural causes and the person will take 20% of my funds and 80% will be used for the project.I grew up as an orphan and I don,t have family member or friend to trust to take care of this project. Like they say, the angel you know is worse than the devil you don't know. I will provide you with detailed information once you indicate your willingness.
PLEASE CONTACT ME DIRECTLY ON Farziah@live.com
Mrs Farziah
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Anti-fraud resources:
