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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 Kone Ado" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ado.kone496853@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 08:31:27 -0000
Subject: Re:-Very Urgent
Hello,
I am Mr. Kone Ado, the chief treasurer with one of the Prime Banks in the Ivory Coast. I have a business proposal that will be of mutual benefit to us. Our Bonafide customer who died years ago without relatives my proposal is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand in as the next of kin to deceased person for the fact that you have same last name with him, and it will make it easy for us to claim the funds that he left behind. I am waiting for your urgent answer if you are willing to participate with me in this project.
Greetings,
Mr. Kone Ado
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Anti-fraud resources:
