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"Pay Or Die" Email Scam Hitting Inboxes

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Jul 5, 2008 7:40 am US/Eastern

"Pay Or Die" Email Scam Hitting Inboxes

Email claims to be from person paid to kill you

MIAMI (CBS4) ― E-mail scams seem to have gone on since the Internet began taking off in the 1990's. The Nigerian lottery scam, the Barack Obama is a Muslim scam, and many others have taken in people, but a new one is taking things in a new, violent direction.

Internet users around the world have been receiving an email that's been dubbed the "pay or die" scam. The email states that a friend of yours has contracted the person who sends you the email to kill you.

The hit man then states he/she has been watching you and tracking your movements. However, the hit man says he/she feels sympathetic towards you and decided to let you know about the supposed "hit."

The email then states if you can pay more money to the hit man, they will let you live. The amount of money needed will vary from email to email, but will be in the thousands of dollars.

In Australia, the scam has been showing up as text messages on a cell phone, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Australian authorities reported that money sent to the scammers was being sent through electronic transfers to Thailand.

The easiest way to deal with the scam is to simply hit the delete button and not worry about it. The email often has grammatical or spelling errors in them as well.

Also, just because it reached your email box, it doesn't mean it is legitimate. Remember, just because it's forwarded to you, it doesn't make it true.

A good website to use to check out different things you may receive in an email is snopes.com. It is an invaluable way to check out the different types of scams that are making the rounds through inboxes around the world.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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