A member recently received a very threatening email. We take a look at the rise of this ‘terrifying’ email scam.
The person behind this scam purports to run a site on the dark web that provides all sorts of ‘terrible services’, and that they’d been hired to attack the recipient with acid.
The only way to stop their man from ‘fufilling the task’, allegedly, was to pay them $1,300 in Bitcoin.
The member lives in London, where acid attacks have taken place in the past, which made the threat all the more scary.
Horrified and concerned, they contacted the police, but later discovered it was a scam. The question then turned to how these emails can be reported.
How to report a ransom scam
This is a truly terrifying email to receive and, given the threat it contained, I can understand why the member reported it to the police.
We asked the member to foward us the email and, now I’ve taken a look, it appears to be a new version of the sextortion email scam that we covered in Scam Watch in October.
That scam seems to have morphed and is now much more threatening.
Since December, Action Fraud has had more than 150 reports of this acid attack scam, so you’re not alone and you’re right to raise awareness to warn others. If you’re sent this scam, do not reply to it.
Delete the email, use Action Fraud’s phishing reporting tool, and try to put it out of your thoughts.
If scammers have been in contact with you, email us at scamwatch@which.co.uk, or let us know in the comments below.
The more examples of the scammers’ tactics we see, the more people we can warn and help prevent this type of fraud from going ahead.
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