In Latin America, we can meet beggars everywhere: among relatives and acquaintances (OK: in such a case there are also honest people who are seriously in needs, so I don't blame these latter), on the streets, at the train station (to ask us the money for a ticket), in the supermarket (in this latter case, it uses to happen a very disagreeable circumstance, as it looks like a trickery, previously planned with cunning skills: first of all, the guy fills up his basket with goods, then he seeks out for people who appear to be easy to persuade, people incapable to say no, then he approaches these people and ask them to purchase for him the goods he put in the basket). It's to say some of these guys fill the basket, among the other goods, with an expensive item and that's why I become suspicious. No mind you tell you are unemployed or broken to such people: they use to insist to get the goods purchased. Usually, they are guys in their working age, asking to completely unknown people to purchase expensive goods for them.
Be careful: point those emails as scam. In the worst cases, such emails may include an infectious threaten...
It looks like my country and yours share similar pitiful habits...