Urgent Please!

I got this e-mail a few weeks ago—allegedly from a friend, “Urgent Please” in the message line.

Hi,

How are you today? Anyway I'm not feeling good at the moment, Well I'm stuck in London,England as i speak to you i was mugged last night by some robbers at gun point, i got terribly beaten up by the robbers and injured as well..and right now i speak to you,i got bruises on my neck all cash on me was stolen away including my phone and credit card and now I'm talking to you from a local library close to the hotel where i lodged. I've been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all please i need your help out from here,my flight leaves in three days time from now,but I'm having troubles sorting out the bills i owe here at the hotel where i lodged..i would have loved you to help me call someone..But i already sent bunches of email to everyone and still waiting for response..Please i need you to get me a quick loan of $1,500. i promise to definitely pay you back when i return. Honestly,it was a brutal experience,but thank God i still got my life and passport saved, I already filled a report to the police and they are on investigation But sincerely speaking,they are not helping matters at all. Please get back to me as soon as possible.

All best,

My friend's name

First response: it scared the crap out of me. Could this actually have happened to my friend, from whom I had received a happy “catching up in the new year” e-mail just days before?

Then I read it again and thought—grammatical errors, punctuation errors, run-on sentences, not to mention the voice—there’s no way my friend, who’s a wonderful writer, would have written this, even under the worst kind of duress.

Of course, it turned out to be a scam. I got another e-mail a few days ago—down-and-out in Nigeria this time. My friend has changed his e-mail address since then.

But I keep wondering, what kind of person does this?