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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.
- The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "claims agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- "million dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
- They don't notify winners by email.
- You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
- They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
- They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
- They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
- They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
- They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
Fraud email example:
From: "System Administrator" <peleska@ktkadan.cz>
Reply-To: freelotto@un-dept.com
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 16:44:44 +0200
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS!!
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of FIVE MILLION
DOLLARS ($5,000,000.00 USD) for the April Edition 2018 Lottery promotion,
collects all the email addresses of people that are active online in your
country, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo/Gmail and Hotmail we
only select five people every Month as our winners through electronic
balloting System without the winner applying, we Congratulate you for being
one of the people selected.
PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM
You are to contact your Claims Agent with immediate effect to facilitate the
protocol of your winning prize before the expiry date of Claim; Winners
shall be paid in accordance with his/her Settlement Centre. Prize must be
claimed not later than 15 days from date of Draw Notification after the Draw
date in which Prize has won. Any prize not claimed within this period will
be forfeited. These are your identification numbers:
Batch number....................701/8/8791
Ref number.......................Ref: TR-L/200-26787
Winning number...................0923/UK
To begin your claim please contact our licensed and Accredited agent
assigned to you
You are therefore advised to send the following information to the claims
agent to help facilitate the claims of your prize.
1. Full name............
2. Country..............
3. Contact Address........
4. Telephone Number........
5. Marital Status.........
6. Occupation.............
7. Company..............
8. Age....................
Please Note: Lottery Prize must be claimed not later than 7 days from date
of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has won. Any prize
not claimed within this period will be forfeited.
Congratulations!! Once again.
Yours in service,
Mr Lopardi Felicia
(Operation Manager)
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Anti-fraud resources:
