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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: "Mrs. Elizabeth Anderson" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <lizxand0@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 22:21:12 -0800
Subject: Urget Message (Not Spam)
Hello my dear,
I am contacting you in regards to these particular fund belonging to my late husband. I decided to contact you because i need someone i can fully trust to move the fund for Investment and Charity work that will help less privileges all over the world. My name is Mrs. Nancy Spencer and I operate a non-profit Charity Organization here in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Please let me know if you are interested to work with you to enable me send you more details of my proposition but if you are not interested, please ignore or delete this email and continue your daily regular business.
I will expect to hear from you soonest.
Thank you and God bless you.
Mrs. Nancy Spencer
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Anti-fraud resources:
