A Phrequent Phish

I was in a fellow employee’s office Tuesday morning when she received this email and shared it with me.  Maybe you’ve seen it too?

“Apologies for having to reach out to you like this, but I made a quick trip to Madrid(Spain) and Unfortunately for me i was mugged last night at gun point and they took all my cash,credit card including my cell phone and since then i have been without money.It was a scary experience, I almost fainted because i was very shocked during the incident.Any way....I'm still alive but I'm financially strapped right now and i need your urgent help.I need you to loan me ( 1750 euro) to sort my hotel bill and make arrangement on how to get back home.  I promise to refund your money back as soon as i return back home. I really need to be on the next available flight and please kindly keep this confidential because I don't want anybody to get worried about me until I travel back. Hope you understand me. I had to walk about 15 minutes to the city library where I can quickly contact you and I have limited time on the computer. This is terrible.Write me back so i can tell you how to get the help across to me.”

We were laughing about not only the verbiage but, of course, the content and blatant phishing ‘quality’ of this missive.  The following day, I received the same email with someone else’s name at the bottom and from a different email address. 

These things are sent out by the billions, at random, but someone must respond…right?  Otherwise, why would they continue; and in this high-tech 21^st century, why can’t we track these emails down to the source?

Needless to say, I wired the money and hope he got home safely.  Not!