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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.
- 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.
- 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.
- oceanicbankinternationalp@aim.com (AOL Instant Messenger; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: OCEANIC BANK INTERNATIONAL PLC <info@sender.org> (may be fake)
Reply-To: oceanicbankinternationalp@aim.com
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:24:08 -0500
Subject: Notification!
OCEANIC BANK INTERNATIONAL PLC.
CONGRATULATION!!!!
The ATM CARD payment center, OCEANIC BANK INTERNATIONAL PLC has been
mandated to issue out an ATM CARD value of {900,000 GBP} to you which you
can use to withdraw your money in any ATM machine in any part of the
world. You are advised to keep this information confidentially away from
the public to avoid pending of the
delivery of your ATM CARD to you. Note that because of fraudulent claim
(IMPORTANT) impostors, we hereby issued you our CODE OF CONDUCT, which is
(ATM-900) so you have to indicate this when contacting us by using it as
your subject. Complete the
form below and send it to (oceanicbankinternationalp@aim.com) for the speedy
processing of your
document and transfer of your ATM card to you in your country.
CODE OF CONDUCT: ---------
NAME IN FULL: ----------------
AGE: --------------------------
SEX: --------------------------
TEL: ---------------------
COUNTRY: -----------------
OCCUPATION: --------------
DECLARATION ....I,Mr/: -------------- do hereby declare that the information
given above is correct to the best of my knowledge and believe the same to
be true.
Mr. Mark Lugard
+27781558534
DIRECTOR OF ATM PAYMENT.
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This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
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Anti-fraud resources:
