I have only seen this one once before and it was through a Private Message on Facebook. Now they are preying on peoples sympathy instead of greed. These appear easy to catch if you want to get the authorities involved which I would highly recommend. Just need to play along and find out how and where they want money sent and the authorities will take care of it from there,
How are you doing? This has had to come in a hurry and it has left us in a devastating state. My family and I had a visit to (UK) unannounced some days back for a short vacation, unfortunately we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash, cell phones and credit cards were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have our passports with us.
We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves tomorrow but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills. Please I really need your financial assistance..Please, Let me know if you can help us out?
I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Paul
This wasn't real difficult to figure out it was a scam as who the scammers pretended to be is a Material supplier I use all the time and when this email came through I just happened to be on a jobsite with him. We both had a pretty good laugh when I showed it to him. Paul has already contacted the authorities and has gotten the ball rolling to catch the scammer. If the scammer is US based though they will probably get off because being caught this way could be considered entrapment.