Posted Thursday, April 24 --- 12:50pm

This is the Incident Report from Madison Police Department:

On April 22nd Madison Police received information about a hoax/scam that created a good deal of concern for a Madison man who was sent a threatening email Monday morning.

The subject matter stated "Matter of Urgent". It was from the name "Mr. G. Hord" with an email address of axa@killer.com.

The e-mail starts out stating, “Hello. It’s a pity that this is how your life is going to end 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, I am mailing you now, is just KILL you and I have to do it as I have already been paid for that.”

It then goes on to state that a friend wants the man dead, and has already paid for the service. The entrepreneurial scammer writes the man can save his life, and get the "hit" canceled by forking over $3,000.

The communique goes on to say, “If you are not ready to take my help, then I will carry on with my job, straight up.” It says not to contact police or anyone or, “I will extend it to your family, in case I notice something funny.”

A website that tracks urban legends - snopes.com - states the "hit man bribe scam" has been around since early 2006.

In fact, the FBI (go to fbi.gov) has issued a couple of warnings over the last couple of years on its "E-Scams & Warnings" web page:

NEW TWIST CONCERNING THREAT AND EXTORTION E-MAILS

01/09/07—There is a new twist to the IC3 alert posted on December 7, 2006 regarding e-mails claiming that the sender has been paid to kill the recipient and will cancel the contract on the recipient's life if that person pays a large sum of money. Now e-mails are surfacing that claim to be from the FBI in London. These e-mails note the following information:

An individual was recently arrested for the murders of several United States and United Kingdom citizens in relation to this matter.
The recipient's information was found on the subject identifying the recipient as the next victim.

The recipient is requested to contact the FBI in London to assist with the investigation.

It is not uncommon for an Internet fraud scheme to have the same overall intent but be transmitted containing variations in the e-mail content, e.g., different names, e-mail addresses, and/or agencies reportedly involved. See our related top story on the hitman scam.

Please note, providing any personal information in response to an unsolicited e-mail can compromise your identity and open you to identity theft.

If you have experienced this situation please notify the IC3 by filing a complaint at www.ic3.gov.

Due to the threat of violence inherent in these extortion e-mails, if you receive an e-mail that contains personally identifiable information that might differentiate your e-mail from the general e-mail spam campaign, we encourage you to contact the police.

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E-MAILS CONTAINING THREATS AND EXTORTION

12/07/06—We have recently received information concerning spam e-mails threatening to assassinate the recipient unless the individual pays several thousand dollars to the sender of the e-mail.

The subject claims to have been following the victim for some time and was supposedly hired to kill the victim by a friend of the victim. The subject threatens to carry out the assassination if the victim goes to the police and requests the victim to respond quickly and provide their telephone number.

Warning! Providing any personal information can compromise your identify and open you to identity theft.

If you have experienced this situation, please notify your local, state, or federal law enforcement agency immediately. Also, please notify the IC3 by filing a complaint at www.ic3.gov.