From the musings, an email that would make most people pause with concern. A death threat against your family:
But in actual fact, this email has gone around before:May 7, 2007 - Well, here's a peppy way to start the work week! Welcome to Warren's life.
Anyone else get an e-death threat from these characters?
...
-----Original Message-----From: GOOD MAN [mailto:good_manfor_u@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: May 7, 2007 5:16 AM
To: warren@XXX
Subject: VERY SORRYA am very Very sorry for you, is a pity that this is how your life is going to end is a pity but I will like to give you some chance to help your self RIP.
As you can see there is no need of introducing my self to you because I don't have any business with you, My work as I am talking to you now is just to kill you and a have to just do that as I have already been paid for that.
Some one that I will not like to tell you the name came to me and told me that he want you and the whole of your family dead and he provide us with your name, Address and Phone Number and with my network I sent my boys to track you down and they have done that but I told them not to kill you that I will like to contact you and see if your life is Important to you so I called the him back (I mean my client) and ask him of you email which I didn't tell him what I want to do with it and he gave it to me and I am using it to contact you.
As I am writing to you now my men are monitoring you and there telling me every thing about you. So I will like to know if you Like to live or die as some one has paid for you to die. I am given you just two days to get back to me or I will just make a call and tell my boys to wipe you and your family out.
GOOD LUCK AS I AWAIT YOUR REPLY.
Hello Christopher,
A am very Very sorry for you, is a pity that this is how your life is going to end is a pity but I will like to give you some chance to help your self RIP.
As you can see there is no need of introducing my self to you because I don't have any business with you, My work as I am talking to you now is just to kill you and a have to just do that as I have already been paid for that.
Some one that I will not like to tell you the name came to me and told me that he want you and the whole of your family dead and he provide us with your name, Address and Phone Number and with my network I sent my boys to track you down and they have done that but I told them not to kill you that.
I will like to contact you and see if your life is Important to you so I called the him back (I mean my client) and ask him of you email which Ididn't tell him what I want to do with it and he gave it to me and I am using it to contact you. As I am writing to you now my men are monitoring you and there telling me every thing about you. So I will like to know if you Like to live or die as some one has paid for you to die.
I am given you.just two days to get back to me or I will just make a call and tell my boys to wipe you and your family out.
GOOD LUCK AS I AWAIT YOUR REPLY.
The FBI has seen these sort of things before:
A new scam cropping up in e-mail boxes across the country is preying not on recipients' greed or good intentions, but on their fears. The scam e-mail, which first appeared in December, threatens to kill recipients if they do not pay thousands of dollars to the sender, who purports to be a hired assassin.
About 115 complaints have been filed with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) since the scam emerged, according to special agent John Hambrick, who heads IC3. He said the extortion scam does not appear to target anyone specifically and that IC3 has not received any reports of money loss or threats carried out.
"This is a hoax, so do yourself a favor and don't respond," Hambrick said.
Replying to the e-mails just sends a signal to senders that they've reached a live account. It also escalates the intimidation, Hambrick said.
As long as Warren doesn't respond, nothing will happen. If he does, follow-up emails get more threatening. And more credible:
In one case, a recipient responded that he wanted to be left alone and threatened to call authorities. The scammer, who was demanding an advance payment of $20,000, e-mailed back and reiterated the threat, this time with some personal details about the recipient—his work address, marital status, and daughter’s full name.
At least one recipient of the same spam determined it came from Nigeria. Of course.
So is this a real threat? Yes, inasmuch as the extortion attempt is real. The threat of death, however, is not credible. But I would recommend that Warren Kinsella have someone forensically analyze the email header information. If the email originated from overseas, then the issue can be ignored. But if someone inside Canada or the United States is copying this known spam email and sending it to Kinsella in an attempt to rattle him, then I think a crime has been committed and further action could be taken.
Addendum: Why is it rarely seen? Because this sort of spam targets well known people. People whose personal details are on the web somewhere, so that if the spam campaign moves to the "shakedown" stage, the spammer can add enough personal information to seem credible. Most of us aren't in that category.
