|
|
joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet
|
|
"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: "Webmail Admin Alert" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <coxservices@mail2world.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 23:57:43 -0800
Subject: Dear: Account User
Dear: Account User.
We regret to announce to you that with the rate at which we have newly registered members everyday, our data base is getting congested and now we have decided to under go deactivation of all unused account and some other of our account we find error on for both premium and free accounts.
Every account owner that receives this message has encountered this error and will have to update his/her account with the requested information below.
Please be sure to click the REPLY button first before attempting to fill the info.
Name: ..................................................
ID:
........................................................
Current Pass word: ................................
Date of Sign up(Optional): .......................
After you must have filled this information and have it sent back to us, your Yahoo! account will not be interrupted/terminated and will continue as normal.
WARNING: Account owner that receives this message and refuses to update his/her account within the next 48Hours will be terminated from the Administrator's dept.
Thank you for your usual co-operation. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Regards,
Web admin Communications
Your Friend in the Digital Age
|
Anti-fraud resources:
