419 scam: "Desmond" <carolg@ohioenvelope.com> Good Day Dear

joewein.de LLC
fighting spam and scams on the Internet

Try our spam filter!
Free trial for 30 days

Home

About Us

Spam

419/Nigeria

Fraud

Contact

"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:

An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
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.
The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "from: the desk of" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "united state dollar" (this email uses bad English)
This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
1. They don't notify winners by email.
2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
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.
- mrsconcilia-bright@hotmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Fraud email example:

From: "Desmond" <carolg@ohioenvelope.com>
Reply-To: duwah@ymail.com
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 11:32:55 -0400
Subject: Good Day Dear

Facebook Online International Lottery

From: The Desk Of the President.

International Promotions / Prize Award.

Category: 2nd

Greetings to you Dear lucky winner. We are pleased to inform you of the
result of the just concluded annual final draws held on the 20th of May
2014 by Facebook group in cash promotion to encourage the usage of Facebook
worldwide. Your name was among the 20 lucky winners who won $999.999.00 USD
(Nine hundred and Ninety Nine Thousand Ninety Nine United State Dollars)
each on the Facebook group promotion award attached to Lucky Number
(FB-225-7736), Ticket Number (FB-172-60), Batch Number (FB-0281/544) and
Serial Number (99352748-2013).

The online draws was conducted by a random selection of emails you were
picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the Facebook in
other to claim your $999.999.00 USD the lottery program which is a new
innovation by Facebook, is aimed at saying a big thank you to all our users
for making Facebook their number one means to connect, communicate, relate
and hook up with their families and friends over the years.

This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and
unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants and scam artists all
participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from over
20,000 companies and 30,000,000 individuals email addresses from all over
the world. This promotional program takes place every three years. You may
be rest assured that this is real and legal. There are some scam artists
around but thanks to the FBI, 216 of them have been arrested.

You are required to contact the head of our disbursement department in the
person of Mrs. Concilia Bright via this email address (
mrsconcilia-bright@hotmail.com ) with information below for the complete
processing of your Winning certificate and further information regarding
the disbursement of your lottery winnings.

Full Name:

Contact Address:

Mobile Number:

Occupation:

Marital Status:

Sex:

Age:

Country of Residence:

Nationality:

Lucky Number:

Ticket Number:

Batch Number:

Serial Number:

Your Email Address:

Furthermore, if there is any change in email addresses please contact us on
time. Do not reply to this email, Contact the disbursement department with
the email provided above.

Note: if you are not interested please do not bother to reply.

Thanks and more Congratulations!

Regards,

Mr. Haword Jones

Announcer.

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam