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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:
- An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
- 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:
- "million united state 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)
- "united state dollar" (this email uses bad English)
- 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!
- This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
- cdepartment2019@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "FACEBOOK INC" <info@facebook.org>
Reply-To: cdepartment2019@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2019 16:08:55 +0000
Subject: Facebook promotion
FACEBOOK INC
1601 WILLOW ROAD MENLO PARK, CA 94025
www.facebook.com
Dear Facebook User:
This is to inform you that your Facebook Account has won a prize money of $1,000,000,00 (One Million United state dollars) for the 2019 Edition Facebook promotion.
You are therefore advised to send the following information to the management of FACEBOOK INC to process your claim
[cdepartment2019@gmail.com]
1. Full name.............
2. Country..............
3. Contact Address........
4. Telephone Number.....
5. Marital Status........
6. Occupation.............
7. Company...............
8. Age.....................
Congratulations!! Once again.
For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage of this program by non-participant or unofficial personnel.
Office of the President
CEO of Facebook
Mr Mark Zuckerberg
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Anti-fraud resources:
