Hit man e-mail scam reaches Barstow

BARSTOW — An e-mail scam that threatens death to the recipient hit an inbox in Barstow.

At the beginning of July, a woman told the Barstow Police Department she received an e-mail from an unknown person threatening to kill her if she did send money, according to a police report. Sgt. Mark Franey of the Barstow Police Department said the police received only one report of the scam.

The e-mail stated that the sender had been hired to kill the recipient. However, the sender stated he would not carry out the hit if the recipient paid him $4,000 “to show good faith” and another $4,000 for information about who ordered the hit. She was warned in the e-mail not to go to the police.

Franey said the recipient felt the e-mail was a scam but was “concerned” and wanted to make sure.

“It’s nationwide. The FBI is well-aware of this,” Franey said.

Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the FBI first learned of the scam in December.

No one has actually been harmed in connection with the scam, which is believed to originate in Nigeria, he said.

In January, the FBI learned of a spin-off of the hit-man scam. A scam e-mail circulated that claimed FBI informants in London and the United States had caught many of the hired assassins and found the recipients’ information. The recipient is then asked to do something in order to protect themselves, thus setting the scam in motion, Bresson said.

“Scam artists know how to play off of people’s emotions, whether it’s fear, even greed. A lot of the Nigerian scams play off of greed,” he said. “Sometimes it is through intimidation, like the FBI.”

Scammers often send their ploys out as spam in hopes of hitting as many inboxes across the world as possible. Bresson said 95 to 99 percent of people recognize the e-mail as a scam right away and delete it, but scam artists are only after that other 1 to 5 percent.

Bresson suggested that consumers update Internet security programs on their computers, install a firewall and delete stored cookies. He said these steps will not make anyone immune to scams but will lower the risk.

“We like to compare it to, in the physical world, to locking your doors,” Bresson said. “And in the cyber world, people are walking right through your front door.”