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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.
- +448719158895 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
Fraud email example:
From: "POVERTY ERADICATION AWARD PROGRAM" <mx.mail.sonla.gov.vn@pmx.sonla.gov.vn>
Reply-To: <natoint@live.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 06:13:58 -0800
Subject: (NATO) POVERTY ERADICATION AWARD PROGRAM
NATO Headquarters
Blvd Leopold III
1110 Brussels, Belgium
http://www.nato.int/
http://www.skl.de
NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO) POVERTY ERADICATION AWARD PROGRAM.
Dear Winner:
We are please to inform you of the NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO) POVERTY ERADICATION AWARD PROGRAM: that you
won. Your E-mail address has been listed as one of the winning E-mails among the five winning E-mails for this year NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY
ORGANIZATION (NATO) POVERTY ERADICATION AWARD PROGRAM.
You have been awarded the sum of £850,000 pounds sterling (EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING). This program is
proudly sponsored by The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
These are your identification numbers:
Batch number.....................NATO 07508DGT
Ref number.........................EU54557PY
Winning number...................DDN534FHK
This E-mail address fall within the London bulletin, so you are requested to contact Mr. Martin Benjamin and send your winning identification
to him.
Contact the NATO bank lottery claims department immediately to claim your fund: ( natoint@live.co.uk )
FULL NAME:_________
SEX:_______________
FULL CONTACT ADDRESS:_________
PHONE:_________
AGE:____
CITY:_____
STATE:________
COUNTRY: ______
OCCUPATION: _____
E-MAIL ADDRESS:_______
Mr. Martin Benjamin
Foreign Services Manager,
E-mail: natoint@live.co.uk
Tel: Phone: +448719158895
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Anti-fraud resources:
