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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 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: "FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTTIGATION" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <federalbureauofinvesttigation@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 03:41:55 -0700
Subject: RECONFIRM YOUR INFORMATION FOR VERIFICATION
This is to inform you that we have received an alert from your Bank that a certain amount of money has hit your account from a transaction you are conducting.We only wish to make sure that the fund is of good intent into the United States and at such you are expected to Download the attachement and reconfirm the information in the attachement confirming that you are the beneficiary of the said fund about to hit your acount today.This is a security measure that must be followed without any hesitation.
Falure to comply with this process will attract investigation and subsequent arrest citing Terrorism nor Dru related offenses.
You are therefore expected to proceed now without any waste of time and reconfirm your information on the attachment.Note also that if you can verify that the information on the said attachment is yours and authentic then you would not pay a single dime as this office will make sure the fund hts your account today.Proceed as advised
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Anti-fraud resources:
