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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 next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: "MR. CHOI DEUKYOUNG" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <choideukyyoung@outlook.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2017 14:56:46 -0000
Subject: AS NEXT OF KIN.
Good Day ,
I thank you very much for your kind consideration. Unfortunately, this customer died with his family in a car crash during summer holiday of 2010 in France. His account mandate does not have any contact of any of his relatives as next of kin. I have made several inquiries to his embassy to locate any of his relatives without any success so I decided to track any of his relative through the last name on Facebook.. I have been mandated by my bank management to provide the next of kin to his account. If I don't get any of his relatives in 29 days the account balance of $10.700,000 will be returned to the government treasury.
Since you share the same last name with the late account holder and I cannot find any of his relatives I now seek your consent to present you as the next of kin to the late account holder. I have relevant documents to back up this claim and I assure you that we will handle everything legally and professionally. You and I will share the money 50/50 after the money is transferred to you. I think this is fair decision instead of the Thailand government taking the money.
If you are interested I will tell you what we need to do to claim the funds within 2 weeks.
I Look forward to your positive reply.
Thanks,
Mr. Choi Deukyoung.
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Anti-fraud resources:
