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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: "James Sloan" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <jamessloan233@outlook.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2023 02:58:16 -0400
Subject: Re: YOUR PAYMENT
Attn: Beneficiary,
I am Detective James Sloan,An Interpol official with the United
Kingdom National Crime Agency and the United States Police Department.
I have been sent from my office in United Kingdom to the office of the
African Deposit Insurance Corporation(ADIC) to effect
the urgent release of all the allocated fund beneficiaries with the
African Union that have not received their payments due to the
inability of African bankers to effect the release of their funds to
them due to the fraudulent activities going in the African banking
industries.
Your (NAME) was in the list of the beneficiaries that have not receive
their over due allocated payment of USD$19.6M from the African Union,so
i have been mandated to effect the urgent release of this fund to you
without any further delay.
i look forward to receiving your urgent response along with a copy of
your identification,your full contact address and your telephone
number for easy communication. Attached is my id
Thanks for your understanding as i look forward to hearing from you soonest.
Sincerely,
Detective James Sloan
Interpol Director
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Anti-fraud resources:
