Any account recently waking up and asking for a loan after a long period of inactivity IS suspicious. However, not everyone is going to be a scammer or a hacker or a compromised account. Some people do seek out to these forums for loans but many fellow account thieves in the Bitcointalk community also tend to hack these notable accounts in an attempt to steal money from hardworking innocent people here which SUCKS. Personally unless I knew this person in real life or can verify that they are the original owner through other mean I would advise not loaning them.
Is really hard to identify hackers and scammers in this community, so seeing an account that hasn't been active for a very long time just pop up and start asking for loan can be suspicious like you said but on the other hand the user can be genuine, it works both ways. And it's left for you to decide whether to give or not. Giving loan on this Forum is like answering an unknown number, you don't know who's at the receiving end.
But since you don't know the user in person you have every right to assume whatever comes out from your head. Imagine you as someone who's giving out loan, would you just give out loan in this festive season? I believe it would be hard to try it even with someone you hardly know, I'd say it again, is a risky task (giving loan on the Forum).
