Send money NOW!

Last night I received this email from someone I know from church. For privacy, I replaced the name of the person who sent me the email with Jane Bloggs (according to the Unnamed Geniuses, Joe Bloggs is used as a placeholder name in the UK instead of John Doe).

I am sorry i did not inform you about my trip and I do hope that you receive this email in good health. I am presently in Great Britain,London to be with my ill Cousin. She's suffering from a critical uterine fibroid and must undergo a hysterectomy surgery to save her life . I am deeply sorry for not writing or calling you before leaving, the news of her illness arrived to me as an emergency and that she needs family support to keep her going, I hope you understand my plight and pardon me.

Hysterectomy surgery is very expensive here, so I want to transfer her back home to have the surgery implemented there am wondering if you can be of any assistance to me with her hospital bills including ticket fees, I need about £1800 Pounds to make the necessary arrangement; I traveled with little money due to the short time I had to prepare for this trip and never expected things to be the way it is right now. I'll surely pay you back once I get back home, I need to get her home urgently because she is going through a lot of pain at the moment and the doctor have advised that it necessary that the tumor is operated soon to avoid anything from going wrong,she is currently taking care of at the Intensive care unit of the hospital and currently I am with her in there and i am restricted to make or receive any calls due to the patients in there but i have access to the Internet.

I would appreciate anything you can do to help me,i promise to repay the money back to you as soon as I get back home safely with my cousin. Please if you have a Western Union office around you send the money to my name and address below, i know this is not in your budget now but i promise to refund the money to you as soon as i get back home and have access to my account.

Name:Name: Jane Bloggs
Address: 1 Eversholt Street,
London, NW1 2DN,
Great Britain


I await your mail as soon as possible so that i can be able to receive the money today, Please let me know any information given to you after sending the money or preferably scan the receipt of the Western Union money transfer so that it will be safer for me to receive.

Please I await your early reply
Regards

When I started reading this email, I was concerned for the person and her cousin. She was supposed to be at a meeting the next night I was going to.

As I read on I became suspicious. Why would she ask for money in pounds? Why had I not heard about her cousin in London? Why is there a sad story followed by a request for money to be sent Western Union to an address followed by a request for a scan of the receipt? Why is there not a single reference to anything specific to this person, me, my relationship to her, where either of us live (only "home"), or how we know each other? Why is Name: listed twice? Why is the name in the email exactly the same as the name on the account? Why did this end up in my spam folder? (partially explained by) Why was I BCCed?

I know this person from church, but not that well. Why would she ask me for money instead of her family or close friends? Why would she write an email that sounded so differently from her other emails and the way she talked?

The answer is simple. Someone hacked her email account and is trying to con me into sending money.

If you ever get an email, facebook message, or other communication like the one above from a friend, it might be a scam. Ask yourself the questions I just raised. Do not let your desire to help someone overshadow the need to investigate the story. Call the person and ask if she is in the country.

My favorite part: Western Union? Going to an office? Are we in the days of the Pony Express?