Scam to Avoid

I received this scam message - ostensibly from a PBS reporter who I think I had some contact with years ago.  In any event, my name must have been in his email contacts.  I haven't seen this particular fraud around for awhile.  But ignore any such messages you receive from an email account of someone you know.  It only means that the account has been stolen. 

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes, I came down to London, United Kingdom for a short vacation. Unfortunately,I was mugged at the park of the hotel where i stayed,all cash and credit card were stolen off me but luckily for me i still have my passport with me.

I've been to the the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and my return flight leaves in few hours from now but I'm having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let me leave until I settle the bills. Well I really need your financial assistance..

Please let me know if you can help me out?   I'm freaked out at the moment

If you have some way of contacting the person whose account was stolen other than simply responding to the compromised email account, you can tell him/her to try and change the account's password or cancel the account.