I got one of those scam e-mails the other day. The woman said she was stranded in Europe, and had lost her purse containing all of her money, and credit cards. She wanted me to wire her some money.
The clever part? The name she used was a VERY unusual name that just happened to be the name of one of my customers.
My theory is that they "fished" my customer's computer, and saw where she had searched my website. By using a name that I recognized, I would be more apt to believe it.
My wife volunteers at the animal shelter and one day we received a e-mail from another volunteer saying she was stuck in England with no cash or credit cards and could we please send her several thousand dollars so she could get back home. We thought this odd seeing we weren't that close with her and it seemed she would contact family before us. We ignored the message and several weeks later she told us someone had hacked into her computer and sent the same message to everyone on her address file.