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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. John Frank" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <jfrankxz1@naver.com>
Date: Sun, 21 May 2017 16:04:54 +0100
Subject: Good day
Good day,
Mr. John Frank is my name, I work in a Bank here in Benin. And I personally handles transactions of Mr. Hamza Yaqoob who eventually died on the 5th of February 2013 from injuries he sustained in auto crash that happened 2:30pm 3years ago. Before his death, Mr. Hamza Yaqoob lived and work here in Benin Republic and was a Contractor with Benin Energy dept. He has $6.2M in a fixed account with the bank with no other beneficiary. Now i write to seek your consent to present you as a foreign partner to stand in as the next of kin to the late Mr. Hamza Yaqoob. Let me know if I can work with you.
My best Regards
Mr. John Frank
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Anti-fraud resources:
