Scam E-Mail Demands Money for Having Recipient’s Life Spared

Police are advising local inhabitants for remaining watchful ever-since a man from Newmarket (England) got a threatening e-mail telling that he'll be killed if he didn't pay 10,000 pounds. Cambridge-news.co.uk published this on July 1, 2011.

Written in a rather poor style and also reflecting confusion in certain portions, the e-mail states that some persons have been hired for taking the e-mail recipient's life; however, if he pays the said amount, his life will be spared and the contract withdrawn.

Naturally getting frightened, the man sought help from the police who started an investigation that showed that the e-mail scam was a familiar one that first originated in USA.

Elaborating the mode-of-operation of the above type of scam e-mail, Police said that it was one form of the notorious 419 scam, the advance fee scam, or the Nigerian scam, as also was well-known as the 'Hitman scam.'

Said Police authorities that the aforementioned type of scam e-mails asserted that a single man or few men forming a group had been engaged for an enormous amount of money for getting the person receiving the e-mail murdered as the Newmarket person within the above instance. However, according to the e-mail, the contract to kill could be canceled provided the recipient wired a certain sum of cash to the killer like 10,000 pounds in the above instance.

Evidently, the purpose of such e-mail messages isn't anything less than extorting cash. Hoping that by generating fear through a clearly threatening message, the scammers think that the victims will be convinced enough for paying up. And since such huge amounts of cash are demanded (as 10,000 pounds in the above instance), the fraudsters know that even if just one victim were conned their efforts would prove worthwhile.

Obviously, Police urged inhabitants not to answer the scam e-mails as that would only substantiate that they were running an active e-mail. Cambridge-news.co.uk published this.

Additionally, Police requested everyone for calling their helpdesk phone-number to seek any advice regarding the issue, while they could also report the scam e-mails to UK's national centre for fraud reporting -Action Fraud by forwarding the messages to email@actionfraud.org.uk.

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» SPAMfighter News - 7/9/2011