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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: "ODIA" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <albert.odia@outlook.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2016 13:54:53 -0800
Subject: RE:YOUR OUTSTANDING PAYMENT
Dear sir,
I am writing you in view of your fund whose payment is still unpaid by the Government of Nigeria due to administrative reasons.
You will recall that several attempt to make this payment in the past was difficult due to the past government financial implementation which makes it impossible to pay most of our foreign Creditors.
However,the president government has relaxed all embargo on foreign payment and has instructed that we make part payment to all creditors.It is on this strength that I am contacting you now.
Please get back to me ASAP so that i can give you more informative details of payment.
ALBERT ODIA
FOR:ACCOUNTANT GENERAL OFFICE
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Anti-fraud resources: