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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:
- "waiting for your urgent response" (scammers rush victims so they don't have time to think properly)
- "abidjan" (a location commonly mentioned in 419 scams)
- This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.
Fraud email example:
From: Agnes Adensu <agnesadensu@gmail.com>
Reply-To: Agnes Adensu <agnesadensu@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 02:26:45 +0900 (JST)
Subject: May God be with you and your family.
I am Miss. Agnes Adensu the daughter of Mr. Koume Adensu the former Minister of Mine with the former President Mr. Laurent Gbagbo.
My Father died mysteriously after he was arrested with the former president at the presidential Villa on the 11/04/2011.
Â
After the fall of the former regime many of the people that worked with the former president was arrested and are been kept in unknown location until now. My father did not make it as they killed him and until now have not given any reason for killing him. With the death of my father my mother’s health has never been the same as she had heart attack and died six months
later.
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My purpose of contacting you is to assist me claim my family treasure containing 75KG of Gold deposited in a private save keeping firm in Abidjan. My mother
informed me about the treasure before her deat and I have the documents of the deposit which has my name on it as the next of kin. She has instructed me to look for someone overseas who can help me to reclaim and move the save that contains the Gold into safety in your country and then sale the Gold and invest the money for me in good business.
I want you to be my foreign partner / guardian to claim the save that contains the Gold on my behalf as the new beneficiary.
Please if you can be able to handle this for us, kindly get back to me immediately for more information and contacts of the company for you to proceed immediately. I am ready to offer you 25% of the value of Gold for your assistance in helping us claiming and securing the Gold.
I am waiting for your urgent response.
Thanks and God bless you.
Miss. Agnes Adensu
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Anti-fraud resources:
