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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:
- "fiduciary agent" (real lotteries do not use a "claim agent" / "fiduciary agent")
- 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.
- mf3850981@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: "Google Inc" <google.com-covid19-relief-fund-lottowin@moosejaw-lotto.xyz>
Reply-To: mf3850981@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2021 11:16:36 -0800
Subject: congratulations,Your email won $USD250.000.00 in our free lotto draw
Congratulations ,We wish to congratulate you once again to be lucky winners of this mid week draw.This promotion was set up to encourage the active users of Google ancillary services and microsoft services.
The random draw was conducted by random selection of email addresses from an exclusive list of E-mail addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an automated random computer search from the internet,all email was assigned to ticket number and your email/ticket won.
Your email address was selected to claim the sum of $250.000.00 as your ticket won in the draw.
To claim your prize,please contact our Fiduciary agent with these details below to pay you your prize.
Winning No:ML/82/2593837643
Ticket No:ML/13-2021/4772393165
Contact Person:Rose Mafort
Phone/Fax:+1-425-389-0689.
Email:mf3850981@gmail.com
Congratulations once more for being one of the lucky winners.
Dr.Mr.Kelvin Wilson
Coordinator,Google Inc lotto draw,2021.
Phone/Fax:+1-456-165-2543.
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Anti-fraud resources:
