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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:
- "fiduciary agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "million pounds" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- 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.
- +447017035461 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
Fraud email example:
From: "COCA'COLA®" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <info@cocacola-online.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 16:11:53 +0530
Subject: CONTACT FOR CLAIMS
Dear: e-Mail Winner,
The COCA'COLA COMPANY has set out and successfully organized a Sweepstakes marking the beginning of year anniversary. We rolled out over 10,000.000.00 (10 million e-mails) to mark the 2012 Anniversary Draws.Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their BETA patronage attaching personalized email addresses to ticket numbers.
Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to Ticket Number (7PWYZ2012) with Ballot Number (BT:12052012/20) and drew the LUCKY No: 887-13-865-37-10-83(20) which subsequently won you (One Million Pounds Sterling)(1,000 000) as one of the 10 jackpot winners in this draw.
Please contact our fiduciary agent for claims with the contact below
Agent.
Dr. Brain Wilcox
Email: info@cocacola-online.co.uk
Tel: +44 7017 035461
1.Full Name:
2.Full Address:
3.Status:
4.Occupation:
5.Age
6.Phone Number:
7.Country:
Congratulation!!
Sincerely,
Maggie Bausch
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Anti-fraud resources:
