Greg's Corner

No, a hitman is not coming for you

Two of the more disturbing scams to be a victim of are the cartel scam and the virtual kidnapping scam. Both of these scams use threats of violence to try to get a victim to make a large payment to the scammer while under duress. However, the victim is usually in no real danger. It’s this kind of subterfuge that scammers will stoop to in order to deceive their victims.

In the virtual kidnapping scam, the scammer will claim to have one of your loved ones held hostage. In reality, the person is unharmed. With the cartel scam, the scammers will send you violent and graphic images while threatening this will happen to you if you don’t pay them. As the name suggests, the scammers pose as a criminal cartel. Now, there are reports of a new scam that have similar vibes to these two.

In this new scam, the victim will receive a message claiming to be from an actual hitman. The elaborate message states that they were instructed to kill you, but the hitman has had a change of heart. However, in order to call off the hit, the victim needs to pay off the hitman.

If you receive one of these messages, the odds are pretty good that you’re in no actual danger. This scam is using the movie idea of a hitman to threaten the victims into paying. Much like how kidnappings for ransom in America usually only happen on TV, hitmen are very unlikely to message their targets. Actual hitmen tend to be employed by organized crime while their targets tend to be from rival crime factions.

If you do receive one of these messages, you are asked to report them to your local police or the FTC’s Fraud Website.