Australians receive SMS death threats Hundreds of Australians have received unsolicited TXT messages in which their imminent demise is predicted, along with an offer to avoid a hitman's gunsights if they fork over some hard-earned. The messages read as follows: “Someone paid me to kill you, get spared, 48 hours to pay $5000.00 if you inform police or anybody …
...Robert A. Heinlein was correct in his estimation that Common Sense is anything but common. A hit for a measly 5000? Or rather for less than that; the hit person would want to get a higher profit than from the original contract, if he actually existed. Plus, he would be facing the threat of being the next target himself after not fulfilling a contract.
I choose death by ale. Hand me another pint, please...
Twenty or so years ago, when I was in a very different line of work, someone offered to "get rid of" a problem person in my life for £100, or the tool to do it myself for £50. I had no doubt the person making the offer was a) serious, b) trying to help, and c) able to fulfil what he was offering. I - very politely - refused the offer!
Life is very cheap to some people.
What puzzles me is how they can claim this to be true, did they fail logic 101?
"which clearly aren't scaring everyone into forking over the cash."
By definition the people actually handing over the cash aren't calling the police, sure the people who do call the police aren't handing over the cash, but thats ALL that it tells us, it doesn't tell us how many ARE handing over the cash and not calling police because they are to scared.
"which clearly aren't scaring everyone into forking over the cash."
This says that not everyone is being scared into paying.
The statement is true, it just doesn't tell us anything useful about how many people have been successfully conned. Nor does it exclude the possibility that someone paid up _and_ went to the police, but I think that's an unlikely scenario.
Did you take Logic 101 Mr Brooks? ;-)
I mean, $5K is a lot of dosh - could I trust the hitman not to kill me even after I've paid? But clearly he can't be trusted as he's already broken his original contract to kill me - or has he? If he takes my money and kills me anyway then he *hasn't* broken his original contract, so he IS trustworthy - no, wait, hang on, now he's just broken his agreement with me by killing me, so he's dishonest aftert all, which means he won't kill me...my brain hurts...
I'm reminded of the probably apocryphal story of the man who sent 10 anonymous letters to local people at random, which simply said 'Fly! All is discovered.' Three of them packed their bags and one committed suicide...
People do have guilty secrets, so perhaps it's not just the gullible who are paying up but the occasional individual who reads the SMS and thinks 'Oh, bugger.....'
This post has been deleted by its author
It depends how you parse this:
Someone paid me to kill you, get spared, 48hours to pay $5000.00 if you inform police or anybody, death is promised.
It sounds like you have to pay 5 thousand dollars for the privilege of death, but only if you tell others. Bugger that for a game of solders.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
