LANCASTER, Pa. -- A new e-mail scam is trying a new tactic to gain a victim's confidence: It claims that he or she is the target of a hit man.

In the scam, television station WGAL reported, the sender poses as the FBI London office, claims that the hit man in question has just been arrested for the murder of someone else, and says that evidence seized during the arrest suggested that the recipient of the e-mail is next on the hit man's list.

The e-mail then asks the recipient to click a link to provide personal information that will assist in the investigation. The e-mail is really nothing more than a guise used to steal victims' identities, the station reported.

If you receive the e-mail, you can report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

The IC3 said that, due to the threat of violence inherent in the e-mails, if an individual receives a message that contains personal identification that might differentiate their e-mail from the general e-mail campaign, he or she should contact the police.

Urban myth compiler and debunker Snopes.com reported that a separate scam uses an e-mail purportedly from a hit man. In that ruse, the alleged hit man says that he has been paid $50,000 to execute the recipient of the mail, but that he will abandon the plan for $80,000.