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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: "Mr. Wilson Zhen" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <wilsonzhen_dbs@qq.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 00:36:12 +0800
Subject: WILL
This message has identified this incoming email as possible spam.
Content preview: I am Mr. Wilson Zhen, Trained and working as an Account Officer
In Development Bank of Singapore (DBS). I write to contact you about a foreigner
bearing the same name as yours, who [...]
Content analysis details: (15.8 points, 10.0 required,0.5 bayes score)
pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
-1.4 ALL_TRUSTED Passed through trusted hosts only via SMTP
0.0 MISSING_MID Missing Message-Id: header
3.4 FH_DATE_PAST_20XX The date is grossly in the future.
1.6 MISSING_HEADERS Missing To: header
0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
1.7 MIME_HTML_ONLY BODY: Message only has text/html MIME parts
1.4 NO_DNS_FOR_FROM DNS: Envelope sender has no MX or A DNS records
0.0 FORGED_OUTLOOK_TAGS Outlook can't send HTML in this format
2.0 ADVANCE_FEE_2 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)
0.0 FORGED_OUTLOOK_HTML Outlook can't send HTML message only
1.4 ADVANCE_FEE_3 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)
1.5 ADVANCE_FEE_4 Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)
4.2 FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
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Anti-fraud resources:
