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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "trunk box" (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)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Zainab <zz77sa@outlook.com>
Reply-To: Zainab <zxx777sa@yahoo.fr>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 00:05:45 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Hello Dear Help.
Hello Dear Help.Â
Please help me and my children in Syria as our present condition
here is so precarious; my husband moved some funds out of our
country to overseas, on his way back to manage to rescue us out of
this hell place before he was killed by ISIS.....Help us please we
are helpless here I'm ready to offer you 20% out of the total amount
as a reward; once you help me secure the fund for the sake of my
children future, amount involved is $17.8M USD it was packaged
in trunk box for safety reasons. Upon your acceptance to help me,
I’ll furnish you with more details.... Meanwhile can you be able to
help me buy a residential house?
Waiting for your quick response,
Cordially
Zainab
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Anti-fraud resources:
