A New Scam Involves Death Threats

A recent scam threatens to take away recipient's life. The e-mail says business owners would be target of a hit man. The nasty e-mail is circulating in Pittsburgh. The e-mail tries to convince that the sender, who is a hit man, has received $50,000 in advance to kill the recipient but this hit man is ready to negotiate.

The message says the sender knows every move of the person and is preparing to kill him. But if the person pays a fee, his life would be spared. It says that the author knows that the recipient is not used to such kind of transactions where someone is hired to kill a certain person. So, the sender and the receiver of the e-mail could make a deal and for a payment of $150,000 the former would not carry out the order.

The case seems almost like 'spear phishing' where scammers aim a certain group of people, said Bill Shore, supervisor of FBI's computer crimes squad in Pittsburgh. Special Agent Shore reported those who have received the e-mails are professionals. He suspects the sender had gathered data on dentists, which helped him to target them.

Computer users in Pittsburgh say they are particular about whom they give their e-mail addresses and are careful about opening e-mails. As of now three professionals have got the e-mail and they reported to the FBI.

Shore believes anyone who receives this e-mail will hesitate; think what he got into and how he can get out of it.

He, however, continues that a closer examination will show that the message is written in incorrect English, which is an indication that it is a scam.

One such dentist is Dr. Mike Dunn with his clinic in Castle Shannon, had received this e-mail on January 2, 2007 in his American online account. The e-mail's subject line was "Be safe in this year".

The FBI has suggested receivers of this e-mail to first contact the agency and then simply delete the message. The Internet Crime Complaint Center of FBI in Fairmont, W.Va received reports relating to this scam in December from residents of New Orleans and Atlanta.

» SPAMfighter News - 15-01-2007

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