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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: Mireille Yao <mireilleyao22@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: Mireille Yao <mireilleyao22@yahoo.fr>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 01:55:36 +0900 (JST)
Subject: Greetings in the name of God!
Dearest,
I am Mrs. Murielle Yao and I'm married to Mr. Hassan Yao for 19 years without a child and my husband died in 2011 during the political crisis in Cote D’Ivoire. I am contacting you to let you know my desire to donate the sum of USD $ 1.7 million to charities in your country that I inherited from my late husband. Due to my illness of cancer which the doctors have confirmed that i will have only few months to live, so it is my desire to see that this money is invested to any organization of your choice and distributed to charity organizations, motherless babies home, schools and support for men and women homeless or you can consider the benefit of those less fortunate. I do not want this fund to be use diabolically. As soon as I receive your reply confirming your acceptance to this work of God then I will give all relevant information to authorize the release and transfer the money to you as my duly appointed representative.
Thank you,
Mrs. Murielle Yao.
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Anti-fraud resources:
