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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:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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 free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- philip976@hotmail.com (Hotmail; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: "USA Inter-Lottery" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <philip976@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:42:33 +0100
Subject: 1 New Message
USA INTER- LOTTERY AWARD 2011
THE INTERNATIONAL AWARENESS PROMOTION
611 E. 6th Street
Houston, Texas 78701
Draw date: 10/04/2011
WINNING NOTIFICATION:
Your e-mail address have just won you $500.000.00 (Five Hundred thousand dollars only)
in the USA INTER- LOTTERY AWARD 2011. Contact this office and your claims agent for more detail:
Agent Philip Pepple
Email: ( philip976@hotmail.com )
Once again congratulations. Your email address has brought to you this expected luck.
N.B. Your response should be sent to ( philip976@hotmail.com ) as email sent to any other address will not be attended to.
Mrs Edith Jones
(Lottery coordinator)
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Anti-fraud resources:
