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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:
- 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:
- "top secret" (scammers urge victims to keep the transaction secret because they don't want anyone to point out to them that it is a scam)
- This email message is a next of kin scam.
- 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.
- info.hansgeorg@aim.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "Hans Georg" <shochreiner@harrison.k12.nj.us>
Reply-To: <info.hansgeorg@aim.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 07:20:12 +0100
Subject: Good Day
Hello dear,
I am Mr.Hans Georg, a regional Account Mnager (Matro bank int'l) London England, Are you a trustworthy individual or company? may I trust you? can you handle A multimillion's top secret deal? If your answers to the above questions are yes,
contact me for immediate transfer of £17.7 millions British Pounds Sterling's to your account hence you bear the same name with a deceased client in my bank who died in a plane last year without any next of kin.
I will be delighted to offer you 35% of the total funds immediately, Contact me in my Private E mail Address (info.hansgeorg@aim.com ) for more details.
Kind Regards
Hans Georg
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Anti-fraud resources:
