Rec'd an email from an email contact who did not send this, asking for money; stuck in the Philipines?

[debbie]

I just received an email from one of my email contacts who rarely travels. In it 'he' asked for money because he was at the embassy in the Philipines b/c he was mugged and had no money. "He" is asking for money to be sent to him. I know this is not my email contact but I wonder how this person will be getting anything if at all. There doesn't seem to be any contact info for this money to be sent. Is everyone safe from this illegal activity anyway since there doesn't seem to be a way for him to receive any money? Should this just be ignored with no other actions? Thank you.

[Kittysue]

You need to contact your friend by some other method (phone, Facebook, Twitter, etc) to let them know their email account was hacked. Your friend's account is hacked which is how the scammers are contacting you. This happened to a friend of mine and 3 of he friends ended up sending these criminals money before she knew her account had been hacked and was sending out spam

When you contact your friend tell him to immediately change his password, make sure the alternate email address is still his and to make sure future mail is not being forwarded to the scammer's address