I laughed so hard when I read this story. This certainly adds a new twist to the Nigerian spam email we have all received over the years.  Network World previously reported a disturbing “hit man” scam email being distributed as spam. This is an update to that story, where a so called “hitman” threatens” to kill the reader, unless money is sent immediately.  I pray people are not that gullible to buy into this utter nonsense.  Unfortunatley some will.

Back in February the FBI received complaints from people in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. The “hit man” email scam also appeared in Washington, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan.  The ridiculous scam email appeared as far back as 2006.  The email was supposedly from a hired assassin. It’s actually a spam  emailing worded in such a manner as to terrorize the reader into giving up  personal information. Replying to this e-mail is a mistake and really should be ignored. Anyone who is scared into replying just confirms to the spammers they have a real email address. It also escalates the intimidation, the FBI said in a report last year.

Two new versions of the scheme began appearing in July 2008, the FBI said. One version told the recipient to contact a telephone number contained in the e-mail. Another version threatened the reader that someone in their family would be kidnapped unless money was sent quickly. There was a deadline of 48 hours for payment to be made. The sender was to provide the location of the wire transfer five minutes before the deadline and threatened bodily harm if the ransom was not received within 30 minutes of the time frame provided.

What really frightens each email reader into action is that some sort of personal information is included. This creates the appearance that the “hit man” spammer actually knows the person and can come to their home. Thousands of these scam emails have been distributed.

This spam email makes the Nigerian scam email look less foolish. The FBI is warning people to ignore the spam and report any incidents to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. So the best defense to this scam is NO RESPONSE. The “hitman” email distributions  are only on a fishing expedition to see who bites.