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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:
- ",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)
- 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.
- jamesdonaldson.177@gmail.com (email address has been used in a known fraud before)
Fraud email example:
From: WILLIAM ROGERS <johnmadison657@gmail.com>
Reply-To: jamesdonaldson.177@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2021 15:11:11 -0800
Subject: Greetings
--
BMW AUTOMOBILE COMPANY.
Dear Online Lottery Winner
The Board of Directors, members of staff and the International Awareness
Promotion Department of the BMW AUTOMOBILE PROMOTION congratulate you on
your success as one of our TEN(10) STAR PRIZE WINNER in this year'
International Awareness Promotion (IAP) 2021 held in USA.
Your email address was randomly selected along with nine others from a
database of over 1,000,000 email addresses drawn from the WORLD-WIDE-WEB.
This makes you the proud owner cash prize of (1,200,000 USD)One
million two Hundred
thousand dollar and BMW 6Xjeep.
Agents Name: Diplomat James Donaldson
Contact Him For Claim; jamesdonaldson.177@gmail.com
Winning Parameters:
TICKET NO: 8603657824738
REF NO: 220-86957
BATCH NO: 2011MTL-03
Also provide listed information below for the payment of this Winning prize
Names==================
Address=================
Age=====================
Sex=====================
Occupation===============
Phone no================
Country=================
Please you are to provide him with the above listed details as soon as
Possible
so he can begin with the processing of your prize winnings.Congratulations
again from all our staffs and the director of BMW AUTOMOBILE lottery
Sincerely Yours
Dr William Rogers
Award Notification Team.
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Anti-fraud resources:
