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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:
- "e.robertclaims@pkuit.com" (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.
- +447045751773 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
Fraud email example:
From: Heraud Alain <Alain.Heraud@ac-poitiers.fr>
Reply-To: e.robertclaims@pkuit.com
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:29:51 GMT
Subject:
Dear Prize Winner,
Congratulations!!! You have won the sum of £750,000.00 GBP (Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds) in the Supersport Lottery Promotion®. To further the claims of your prize, you are advised to contact the payment manager below with your information. Your email was randomly selected out of one million email addresses used for the online draw and this qualifies you as a winner. Your email address is attached to the winning ticket number SP/919/2010/007, this makes you eligible to receive the approved sum. Kindly fill the form below and send it back to me via email.
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Full name:
Contact Address:
City:
Age:
Sex:
Telephone number:
Occupation:
Country:
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Mr.Robert Edison,
Contact Email:e.robertclaims@pkuit.com
Tel: +44 704 575 1773
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Winning Number:.SP/919/2010/007
Reference Number: FOP/101-74837
Prize Certificate Number: OGT866-5
This promo is governed and monitored by the British Gambling Commission and censored (B.G.C).
Best Regards
Mrs Mary Simon
Payment Manager
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Anti-fraud resources:
