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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: "Captain Robert Gauthier" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <robertd.gauthier@yahoo.ca>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:43:38 -0700
Subject: From Captain. Robert D. Gauthier
Partnership Offer of US$48.4 Million for you
I am Group Captain Robert Gauthier, I work for Marine Corps on Monitoring and Peace keeping mission in Iraq. We came across large sum of money in dollars to tune of forty-eight million four hundred thousand dollars (US$48.4M) in the cause of our duties . I am among the battalion that will be moving to Syria in two weeks hence I would like to secured the fund before moving.
We want to move out this money by RedCross cargo airliner if get your consent to act as the beneficiary. You will be entitle to some percentage share as we negotiate .
Get back to me if you are interested with detail of your contacts information for further detail on how you can get the funds and when.
Regards,
Robert J . Gauthier
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Anti-fraud resources: