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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:
- "postcodelnlclaimdept@aol.nl" (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.
Fraud email example:
From: "Nationale Postcode Loterij" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <postcodelnlclaimdept@aol.nl>
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 10:28:04 +0200
Subject: Reference Number: 7864GB
Attn:Winner
This is to inform you that your Email I.D attached to Reference Number: 7864GB, Ticket number:7842HJ,Batch Number:1098BS and Lucky Number:9757PR/11 has won Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand United States Dollars in the Nationale Postcode Online Sweepstakes in Conjunction with the Microsoft Corporation.To claim your winning,please contact the claim dept
Nationale Postcode Claim Dept.
E-mail: postcodelnlclaimdept@aol.nl
Tel: - +31-649-163-656
You are also advice to furnish them with the following information:-
Your Names:-
Telephone / Fax:-
Your Nationality:-
Congratulations once again from management and staff of this company,and thanking you for being a lucky winner of our promotions program.
Sincerely,
Mrs.Mercy de Gelder
www.postcodeloterij.nl
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Anti-fraud resources:
