I received the email requesting a favour too. I immediately sent it to my junk archive, as I recognised the language as being fraudulent, but the name niggled. Looked it up on Google and up came a well known person, but that did not answer why the name was familiar. I was therefore interested to see this thread.
I have also had trouble with my Hotmail account in the last few days. I had a message from someone saying they knew my password (they did, though it was an old one) and if I did not send them US $1900 in Bitcoin within 24 hours, they would send porn images to all of my contacts. I forwarded the email to the Outlook phishing team, which is what our fellow member should do as well if anybody can contact him. Yesterday, I found I could not get into my account as the password was not accepted and I had to reset it. It appears someone had changed it.
If anyone gets a suspicious email from me with attachments, do not open them!
Sometimes I just want to run away to sea!
PS; I change my passwords once a month but it does not always help.