E-Mail Scam Threatens to Send Hitman After You
While many e-mail scams are easily spotted due to their relative ridiculousness and are seemingly safe to simply ignore, one recent scam has its recipients not only taking it seriously but has them in fear for their life.
The e-mail in question reads: "I have been paid some ransom in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employer."
And they don't mean "terminate" in the Donald Trump "you're fired" sense. In this case, "terminate" is used in the 'Sopranos', or perhaps more accurately, the 'Terminator,' "you're dead" sense.
Yes, this particular scam claims that you are to be rubbed out should you fail to make a payment of several thousand dollars and you are to tell no friends or relatives as they may be in ones who called for your ultimate demise. Naturally.
Despite being initially frightening, this scam revealed one small problem that had people who got the message smelling a rat: The e-mail gives no deadline or instructions on how to make the payment that would save your life, which kind of defeats the point. Apparently, these particular frauds aren't too bright.
After doing some digging, Harry Whitworth, a 72-year-old New Jersey man who got the threatening e-mail demanding $8,000 from him, found a similar scam out of Arizona with almost exactly the same wording and spelling errors in the message he had received.
According to the FBI, 115 similar cases were reported around the country within a month last winter, with only the amount of money demanded varying, which went up to $80,000.
First our credit is bad, then certain male body parts are too small, and now we're marked for death! Damn you, Internet!
From AP
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Keith said 9:38AM on 10-08-2007
To everyone who forwards virus warning emails to everyone in your address book, Please Stop. If you google the name of the virus you will see the word hoax in all the results. When real virus come along McAfee, Norton and Microsoft are reporting them long before your friends know about them. I do appricate my friends concerns for my safe computing but please just use some common sense when seeing stuff like the email and virus scams.
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Ghost Dancer said 6:40PM on 10-21-2007
I got such an email last month. I did not ignore it, but was not in fear for my life. Immediately I reported the email to AOL, Yahoo where it originated through, our county Sherrifs Dept., AND the FBI Internet Crime Unit.
By the way my email did contain a deadline, a way to contact the sender, and the warning NOT to contact the police or federal authorities. They DO KNOW who sent this email to me. Guess that sender just tried to play games with the wrong person.
If one is threatened in anyway they should take action and not let it slip by. One never really knows these days if the threat is for real or not. A copy cat can be dangerous even if the original wasn't.
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chuck peterson said 1:55PM on 11-07-2007
I'm on a public computer which won't allow me to print the "Email scam threatens to send hitman After You" article with the cute litte 'hitcat' holding a rifle.If someone can send this to my email,I'd be quite appreciative.
Thank you.
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