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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: david philip <david.philip07@live.fr>
Reply-To: dav.mich05@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 23:12:52 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Read from David
>From David
I am David with my sister. We are from Sierra Leone and lost our father during the political crisis in our country. Our father Mr. Michael Longo was a serving director of the Cocoa exporting board and left deposit of $23.1 million with a bank for a foreign investment. Now we want to transfer this money to your country through your help for investment that will be under your control while we continue our education. Please reply urgently for more details as you agree with your heart to help us out in this request without betraying our trust in contacting you.
Thanks and God Bless.
David and sister
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Anti-fraud resources:
