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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: "Frank Rhodes." <frhodes@email.netmark.pl>
Reply-To: frank.i.rhodescrss@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 04:30:16 +0200
Subject: HELLO....
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Good day, I am Frank Rhodes. I work with the legal inheritance
department of the Emirates International Law Firm UAE. It is my job to
see that any unclaimed account resulting from demise of account holder
is certified and confirmed (UNCLAIMED) before final liquidation
instruction is passed on any such account file. All I require is your
honest co-operation, upon your response, I will write you full detailed
email message. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate
arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the Law. I expect
to hear from you as soon as possible, Frank Rhodes.
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Anti-fraud resources:
