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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!
Fraud email example:
From: POWER BALLpowerplay <reply@powerball.com>
Reply-To: emmy.marty@onet.eu
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2021 08:31:38 -0800
Subject: Re: OFFICIAL PROFIT NOTICE...
Att:
We are happy to inform you of the release of Power-Ball United States sweepstakes international lottery program held on the 23rd August, 2021. Due to the mix up of numbers and names, the results were later released on the 13th December, 2021.
Your email was entered as a dependent client attached with claim file numbers: KLT/VC/0999/171 with batch numbers:
0136215 drew the lucky numbers 4-13-21-27-36-38-45, which consequently won the lottery in the 3rd category. You have been approved a lump sum payment of ($2.500.000 USD) two
million five hundred thousand dollars only) in cash credited to claim file numbers: KLT/VC/0999/171.
This is from a total cash prize of ($250.756.820 USD) Two hundred and fifty million seven hundred and fifty-six thousand eight hundred and twenty dollars only) Shared among International winners in this 3 rd category. Kindly provide details below if you receive this is your email account.
(**) Your Full names:
(**) Your Telephone Number
(**) Your Contact address:
(**) Your Occupation:
(**) Your Country:
(**) Your Age & Sex:
(**) And your file/batch and lucky number above:
Best regards,
Emmy Marty
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!
Note that: Do not share your Social Security number, credit card numbers and bank account numbers. Scammers may try to get this information from you by offering to wire âprize moneyâdirectly into your bank account. Only the designated paying bank in the US has the right to require such information's.
Winners stories- https://www.powerball.com/index.php/winner-stories
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Anti-fraud resources: