Death Threat Spam

According to MX Watch, a new terrifying type of scam-spam is making the rounds.

Everyone feels like they're being spammed to death. This kind of spam literally threatens to kill you.

The scam is simple. The supposed email sender claims to be a hit-man who has been hired to kill you for reasons unknown to them. Your phone is being tapped. If you try to call the police - they'll knock you off.

However, you have an out. If you can come up with a certain amount of money between a couple-dozen thousand and several-hundred thousand - he'll let you live.

The method of required payment isn't made clear. I've heard of some 419 scams where the perpetrator actually arranges to meet in person with the victim. This kind of scam would seem too high-risk for that. From my understanding, threatening someone with death can get you thrown in jail pretty quick.

I myself haven't encountered an example of this spam first-hand. I've searched my spam filter software's intercepted spam folder for some related keywords - and nothing stood out.

While the message content itself doesn't appear spammy - this kind of scam is usually sent using similar methods to most other spam. It's pretty likely a filter like SpamButcher would pick it up.

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