A sequel to the old “pay up or we’ll kill you” scheme has recently surfaced, getting publicity from various Web sites.

This scam that seems to have begun back in April 2007 started out in various forms but with the same MO. It comes as an email message from a person who claims that he has been paid by someone to kill the recipient. The supposed “killer” then asks the recipient a certain amount of money in exchange of their life. Messages were reported to contain the following:

Subject: BE MORE CAREFUL
From: “BE MORE CAREFUL”
Reply-To: william1111@live.com
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

I am very sorry for you, is a pity that this is how your life is going to end as soon as you don’t comply. As you can see there is no need of introducing myself to you because I don’t have any business with you, my duty as I am mailing you now is just to KILL you and I have to do it as I have already been paid for that.

Someone you call a friend wants you Dead by all means, and the person have spent a lot of money on this, the person also came to us and told me that he want you dead and he provided us with your name ,picture and other necessary information’s we needed about you. So I sent my boys to track you down and they have carried out the necessary investigation needed for the operation on you, 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 or not since their findings shows that you are innocent.

I called my client back and ask him of you email address which I didn’t tell him what I wanted to do with it and he gave it to me and I am using it to contact you now. As I am writing to you now my men are monitoring you and they are telling me everything about you.

Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? As someone has paid us to kill you. Get back to me now if you are ready to pay some fees to spare your life, $30,000 is all you need to spend You will first of all pay $15,000 then I will send the tape to you and when the tape get to you, you will pay the remaining $15,000. If you are not ready for my help, then I will carry on with my job straight-up.

WARNING: DO NOT THINK OF CONTACTING THE POLICE OR EVEN TELL ANYONE BECAUSE I WILL KNOW.REMEMBER, SOMEONE WHO KNOWS YOU VERY WELL WANT YOU DEAD! I WILL EXTEND IT TO YOUR FAMILY, INCASE I NOTICE SOMETHING FUNNY.

DO NOT COME OUT ONCE IT IS 7:PM UNTIL I MAKE OUT TIME TO SEE YOU AND GIVE YOU THE TAPE OF MY DISCUSSION WITH THE PERSON WHO WANT YOU DEAD THEN YOU CAN USE IT TO TAKE ANY LEGAL ACTION. GOOD LUCK AS I AWAIT YOUR REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL CONTACT

Other variants of the message mentioned above contains the same message, only with different amounts of money being asked for by the sender. Here’s a sample email of the scam:

This scheme is fairly old, but still does not eliminate the possibility of someone falling for it. Trend Micro advises recipients of an email message similar to the shown above to ignore the said message.