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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 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.
- jhountalas.cibc@gmail.com (Gmail/GoogleMail; can be used from anywhere worldwide)
Fraud email example:
From: Facebook Lottery <luidmiguel.caixa@gmail.com>
Reply-To: fbkig.lotto@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2021 11:36:30 +0100
Subject: FACEBOOK
Dear Subscriber,
We wish to congratulate you for being one of our lucky winners on the
recent first ever Facebook and Instagram Joint Online Promo Lottery. Your
email address has won for you the sum of$1,250,000.00 (One Million Two
Hundred and Fifty Thousand United States Dollars) only.
Winners were selected after computer automated balloting on all active
subscribers of Facebook and Instagram through which you emerged as one of
the lucky winners as one of our most active Facebook/Instagram subscribers.
Congratulations. Important Note: Draws Were conducted from a list of over
400 Million Facebook and Instagram subscribers accounts hence no lottery
ticket was sold In this lottery. It was purely an online automated
computerized balloting system.
While we congratulate you as a lucky winner, we want you to contact CIBC
through the details below for your payment.
Mr. Jon Hountalas
Manager, Lottery Claim Unit
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
Email: jhountalas.cibc@gmail.com
Sincerely,
Ms. Anja Trafford
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_mediumail&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon>
Virus-free.
www.avast.com
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_mediumail&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link>
<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
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Anti-fraud resources:
