Sadly, we are a charitable people and we are touched whenever we hear a sad story. And that bites people in the butt more and more.
Pat sez... IGNORE ANY unsolicited e-mail that
(1) offers to sell you something
(2) offers to buy something from you
(3) asks for money
(4) mentions Western Union in any context
(5) begins with "Greetings in the NAME OF THE LORD"
If a relative or friend needs emergency cash, a phone call will get a much quicker response than an e-mail. You are just never sure where an e-mail really originates, since headers (and return addresses) are VERY easily forged.
While some of these scams are very easy to spot, like the ones that open with "I am BARRISTER Smith Joseph, based in UK with the Smovolian Embassy, and I have financial proposition...," others like the one mentioned by the OP are getting more and more sophisticated.
Send money via Western Union and once it's picked up you have no way of catching the crook. Zip, zero, nada...
I have a friend who sells advertising on a web site. One of his customers was paid for a product with four counterfeit $1,000 cashiers checks. He deposited them and the bank took them. FOUR WEEKS later they came back and told him the checks were fake. Pay up, Bubba...
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