If you could understand Muhammad Sadik's email, with its incorrect grammar and spelling, you might be a little afraid.
After all, he claims to be a Kuwaiti "murder agent", who is threatening to kill many Dunedin email users if they don't pay him a large ransom.
It is the latest and one of the nastiest forms of spam to hit New Zealand, and one Dunedin business owner is afraid someone will take the email seriously.
Fletcher Lodge owner Keith Rozecki-Pollard said he received the email yesterday, and, despite receiving much spam email, he was shocked to read the content of this one.
In the email, Sadik says he has been hired by someone close to the recipient to kill them.
"He payed [sic] me to kill you and I don't know what you did to him and I don't care to know, but the person wants you dead and right now your life is in your own hands now.
"You have just seven days to live after that me and my men shall come for your life.
"My men monitors all you[r] movement in and out. My men are well surrounding your house right now watching you, and if you do anything stupid you shall receive a gun short [sic] from them."
However, the email gives the recipient an opportunity to pay double the assassination fee in a bid to discourage the gunmen from carrying out the killing.
Mr Rozecki-Pollard said the email was topical - especially with all the violence in the Middle East at present.
He said he was used to dealing with spam, but believed this particular email could easily upset some in the community, especially the elderly.
"It's the first one I've seen that threatens physical violence."
Mr Rozecki-Pollard believed internet service providers should be more proactive about stopping emails of this nature from reaching email accounts.
"They can stop any given domain name coming through."
The email was one of about 170 scams reported to the anti-spam compliance unit at the Department of Internal Affairs so far this month.
Internal Affairs senior investigator Toni Demetriou said the unit continued to receive complaints about death-threat emails, and advised recipients to ignore and delete them.
"We appreciate that these emails may cause people who receive them real concern. But these are hoax emails, and anyone receiving them can forward them to the department."
