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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:
- "dear sir/madam" (a standard Nigerian greeting phrase)
- "revpaul_dennis@outlook.com" (this email address has been used in a known scam)
- This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
- They don't notify winners by email.
- You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
- They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
- They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
- They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
- They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
- They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
- This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
Fraud email example:
From: Greg Williams <millipiyango160@eathendrives.com>
Reply-To: <revpaul_dennis@outlook.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2016 09:00:13 +0000
Subject: Congratulations
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Milli Piyango e-mail weekly sweepstakes lottery held on Saturday 23th January 2016 in Turkey.Your e-mail address with ticket number: 56188 with Serial number 02098 matched our lucky numbers: 06-13-18 -21-23-24.
You have therefore been approved to claim a total prize sum of 820,000 USD in cash credited to file NIG/9023118308/03. Coincidentally, this file falls within our African booklet, and to file for your claim please contact our African payment agent:
Contact person: Rev Paul Denis
Email: revpaul_dennis@outlook.com
Telephone: +234 8094624360
Your prize money would be processed and released to you as soon as you contact this payment office. Congratulations once more from all members and staff of this program.
Sincerely,
Greg Williams
+44 -744-070-3005
LONDON - UK OFFICE
http://mpi.gov.tr/index.html
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Anti-fraud resources:
