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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: Dorothy Georgieva <henryander1956@gmail.com>
Reply-To: westernuniocenter2020@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 20 May 2021 10:34:02 -0800
Subject: Attention Beneficiary, I am contacting you to inform you to that we
have concluded to effect your Lottery Inheritance wining payment through
Western Union Money transfer & we have sent the first transfer of $5,000 this
morning from your Inheritance sum of $2.5 Million USD, Therefore you need to
contact the Western Union agent David Kamakas and ask him for all the
transfer payment information & the MTCN for pick up at of from any nearby
Western Union. Contact Agent: David Kamakas Email: westernuniocen
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Anti-fraud resources:
