Almost certainly this is a spoof of your relative's account, not a hack. Some slime bag harvested the address online, then started masquerading as your family member to get their slime looked at by people she knows. It's an old trick, but it still works.
Not long ago, another forum I visit got attacked and the bad guys actually got registration information about a bunch of users, me included. My registration email account was spoofed (NOT hacked) to send spam to people I had sent emails to a long time ago. I spent a whole morning changing lots of passwords and explaining the odd stuff a few people got (most of the addresses the slime bags sent to were old and deactivated) who actually got it-but were too bright to open because it was just so obviously spam. That is what I'd advise your family member to do; change all of her online passwords, then officially let people know that she is not going to send any one spam.
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