Vital Information About Frauds and Fraud Prevention
‘Hitman’ scams are a relatively new type of scam that you may encounter. These seem to be growing and people should be aware of what they are and what to do. It starts by someone getting a person’s e-mail address which is fairly easy these days.
The scam artist send an e-mail to the victim, claiming that they were contracted to murder the e-mail’s recipient. However, this fake hitman has had second thoughts, and they will be willing to let you live if you pay them a certain fee. Naturally, this is a shock to the person receiving the e-mail. Typically, anyone who is wrapped up in this variety of fraud will lose many thousands of dollars.
This type of criminal plays on people’s fears. Watching modern television shows one sees hitmen hired who kill people for seemingly foolish reasons. Most people don’t have to experience this, as they have no reason to fear doing something so bad that warrants execution.
There are those who have fallen for the scam and have sent money to get the “hitman” to back off. Others have been smart enough to turn the e-mail over to the proper authorities. Anyone receiving these threats should do the same thing.
Another angle related to this scam is an e-mail supposedly from a London, or some other big city police department. They claim they have arrested a suspect, in these threats, and the person’s name is on the list. Personal information is then solicited from the recipient. All this serves to do is give the scammer all the means to steal your identity. As a result, you should use 411telephonedirectory.com/Texas/Houston/832/866 or another telephone look-up service to verify the validity of these callers or email senders, so you can rest assured that it’s a scam.
The personal information gleaned from the victim can be used to clear out the bank accounts and credit cards of the person, robbing them of all their money. This has led to the loss of thousands of dollars as well as ruining one’s credit record.
This variety of scam is expected to become more prevalent with time. If you want to avoid falling victim to this, don’t open emails from people you don’t know. Even if the e-mail seems to be from a well-known company, if not doing current business with them, the best advice is to delete that e-mail without opening it. There are scammers who pretend to be Yahoo and WalMart, among other popular businesses, to lull people into a false sense of security.
It is very important to remember that your e-mail is private, just as your regular postal mail. Even though, through modern technology, that account can be surveyed, it can only allow the scanner in if you open his e-mail. The rule of thumb, to avoid scams like the hitman, is to use the delete key.
Tags: email, fraud, hitman scams, internet, scams
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