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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: Richard David <garylynn000@gmail.com>
Reply-To: richarddavid000@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 10 May 2017 09:21:21 +0100
Subject: Re;From Sergedant Richard
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Hello , How are you doing? I'm sorry to bother you with my personal
problems but i think its good i share it with you as my friend. On our
search for isis learders here in Syria we ambushed and kill many of
them and captured one of there leader he is right now in our custody
for proper investigation so that we can easily use him to track other
present location. Meanwhile, we caught him with a large sum of money
loaded in luggage box he further made us to understand that the money
is what they use for financing their evil acts.
Now what i want you to understand is that we are in possession of the
luggage that contains this sum of money at this moment and we want to
arrange with United Nations delivery agent to have the luggage box fly
to your country, for you to help us receive the luggage and keep it
safe pending when we arrive back to from my mission. Do i confide in
you on this?
The amount in the box is $4.1m
I will be waiting your urgent response in regards to my above message.
Note i and my colleague will compensate you greatly if you can help us
receive this luggage.
Yours Richard.
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Anti-fraud resources:
