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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 next of kin scam.
Fraud email example:
From: LeRoy Christopher <robg9068@gmail.com>
Reply-To: lc6049701@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 05:53:29 -0700
Subject: Hello
Greetings,
My name is Mr. LeRoy Christopher; I am a banker and the personal
accounts manager to one of our deceased customers of your nationality
who was a contractor with an Oil and Gas service company in Ivory
Coast. The deceased client made a numbered fixed-time deposit with our
bank before his sudden demise.
The account is currently without any registered relative or next of
kin and the fund now has open beneficiary mandate. I am therefore
seeking for your consent to present you to our bank as the next of kin
of the deceased to procure the outstanding sum which has been lying
idle in a suspense account with our bank since the fund has overstayed
and is now due for recovery otherwise it will be covered as unclaimed
funds and would be returned to the government treasury vault for their
own use if no one comes to claim the funds.
I am looking forward to your cordial response for more information on
how we can proceed.
Best regards,
Mr. LeRoy.
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Anti-fraud resources:
