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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 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.
- +447035909472 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
- 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.
- nokiaclaimsdepartment74@yahoo.co.uk (Yahoo, United Kingdom; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: Webmail Neufassung <mrdavidblanco1@gmail.com>
Reply-To: brianwhite101@googlemail.com
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 07:54:17 -0700
Subject: ....Congratulations....
Nokia Awards Center
BRITISH MICROSOFT E-MAIL SELECT AWARD FROM HEAD OFFICES LONDON
British Microsoft Award
Headquarters: Customer service
Officer London
2 Sheraton Street
London,W1F 8BH
UNITED KINGDOM
Attn:
Your email address have just won a Nokia Windows live prize money of
FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND BRITISH POUNDS STERLING)
(GBP£450,000.00) today 2nd september 2011.
Award winners emerge through random selection of all active email
subscribers online. Six are selected monthly to benefit from this
promotion.
PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM
Winners are to be paid in accordance with his/her Settlement Center.
This Prize Award must be claimed in not later than 30 days from date
of draw notification after which unclaimed prizes are canceled.
WINNER NO: 4
These are your identification numbers:
BATCH NUMBER:MFI/07/APA-43658
REFERENCE NUMBER: 2007234522
AWARD WINNING NO: 4
CONTACT OUR AGENT:
Email: nokiaclaimsdepartment74@yahoo.co.uk
PHONE NUMBER:+ 447035909472
Congratulations!! once again.
NOTE
You are hereby advised not to disclose the content of this Prize Award
until your money have been remitted to you to avoid disqualification
that will arise from dual claim.
Best Regard,
DR. D.Blanco
Lottery Board Director.
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Anti-fraud resources:
