Read here for the latest variation on the 419 scam, utilized through chat on hijacked Facebook accounts, as detailed by the famous Meng Wong, author of the SPF specand other helpful technologies.
Wong includes a full transcript of a chat with a "friend" of his who tells him that he is traveling in London, was robbed at gunpoint and needs Wong to wire him money. Wong is not fooled for a second and plays with the guy, even sending him the URL toa TechCrunch story picked up by the Washington Post about this exact scam.
In the end Wong gets him to view a URL on one of his servers; then from the logs he pulls out the address of the scammer, a Nigerian address. The very least you can say about the Nigerian address is that it's not in London.
All of this proves the general rule that identity is a fuzzy thing on the Internet. Even when you have an established relationship with someone through an online channel you need to be skeptical of everything you see, especially when patterns of behavior change.
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