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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: Money Gram Services <westerrnunionmt@terra.com>
Reply-To: Money Gram Services <moneygram.bj@outlook.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 07:25:46 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Dear Customer, Your long awaited $22,500,000:00 usd have been
approved by the Minister of Finance here to released to you so now we have
carry on the transfer file and we have started to send the money to you
through Money Gram by $5,000 usd three times daily. now Below is your
first payment details to pickup today, This is tracking link money
gram Web site: ( https://secure.moneygram.com/track ) Using
(REFERENCE) number # 62272243 Enter senders last name ....Shabang
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Anti-fraud resources:
