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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: "Shehu" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <shehumala@writeme.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 11:47:01 -0000
Subject: Investment opportunity
Hello,
I'm contacting you with this investment proposal with belief you will appreciate the benefit therein. My name is Shehu Malami - Managing Director Port Harcourt Refining Company -Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation-NNPC.
My proposed investment fund is a legitimate entitlement earned from the sales of Crude oil on behalf of the Corporation-NNPC.
As a practice, sales of Crude oil on behalf of NNPC Corporation is handle either by the multinationals companies under category "A" sales agent or as commission agent under category "B" sales agent. While the category "A" sales agents are paid directly by the Corporation NNPC through a payment system called Crude Oil swap deal because of huge volume of sales while payment to category "B" sales agent is handled by the federal ministry of finance.
With this understanding, I tactically used my office to facilitate sales of some volume of Crude Oil under the category "B" to a cumulative sum over a period of time, but the accrued total payment has not been paid because I cannot directly receive the fund in my country since I am still working as a public servant. It is for this reason I contacted you to receive the accrued fund as my foreign partner for our joint investment in your country.
If you are capable of handling funds for investment, get back to me with your information for more details.
Regards.
Shehu.
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Anti-fraud resources:
