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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: "Mr.Charles" <"ww."@mirror.ocn.ne.jp>
Reply-To: "Mr.Charles" <mr.charles547@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 May 2017 13:37:00 +0900 (JST)
Subject: Hi Dear
My name is Charles Feeney, a philanthropist and the founder of The Atlantic
Philanthropies, one of the largest private foundations in the world. Dear
I believe strongly in ‘giving while living.’ I had one idea that never
changed in my mind ― that you should use your wealth to help people and I
have decided to secretly give USD 12.9Million to randomly selected
individuals worldwide. On receipt of this email, you should count yourself
the lucky individual. Dear your email address was chosen online while
searching at random. Kindly get back to me at your earliest convenience,
so I know your email address is valid and for more details of my free will
donation to you.
Visit the web page to know more about me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Chuck _Feeney
Regards,
Charles Feeney
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Anti-fraud resources:
