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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: Mr Bernard Lauwers <wd141453@gmail.com>
Reply-To: bmlauwers961@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2023 13:43:25 -0700
Subject: Hello Am Mr Bernard Lauwers.
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Attn: Greetings
My name is Mr Bernard Lauwers and I am one of the assistants of Mr. Bo Li
the current Managing Director of the IMF (The International Monetary Fund)
here in Washington DC. You can view our website at www.imf.org
The reason for my email to you today is to let you know that, unknown to
the general public The IMF receives close to a total of US$10 billion each
year in donations from wealthy philanthropists around the world. Some of
the donations are even bestowed anonymously. I am contacting you to let you
know that I am in a position to earmark some of these funds for
disbursement which can fall under the category of either loans or
humanitarian purposes.
If you have a business that you think would qualify for either an interest
free loan or humanitarian assistance please get in touch with me upon
receiving this email. I would then refer you to a contact that would help
you by filling out the exact forms and guiding you through the procedures
for you to receive funds anywhere from $5 million to $20 million. You would
in effect have an “inside person†telling you exactly how to get funds from
The IMF in a fully legitimate way.
For my assistance, I would ask that once you receive funding that you kick
back 10% of the funds to me, if it is a loan, and 20% of the funds if it is
for humanitarian purposes.
Please let me know if you are interested and I will call you for a
discussion. It is against protocol to offer anyone this type of assistance,
so I have written to you from my private email to start. I can give you my
official email address once we get started.
If I do not hear back from you in the next 5 days I will assume you are not
interested and I will continue my search for someone who is. However if you
are interested, please send me your direct phone number so that we can
speak.
Hoping to hear from you.
Sincerely
Mr Bernard Lauwers
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