The disturbing evolution of the 419 scam from e-mails from Nigerian princes to hijacked Facebook accounts is raising serious alarms within law enforcement circles. We originally reported this new tactic in January, but users still haven't caught on. Just last month a Missouri woman was taken for $4,000 by a scammer posing as a friend on Facebook, and the 'Today Show' recently aired a segment about Sister Erma, a nun, whose Facebook was hijacked and used to dupe her friend Debbie Peterson in to handing over $3,000.

The scam starts with spam messages that contain malcious links. People careless enough to click on these links, like the previously mentioned CooooL Video and FBAction messages, are either led to fake Facebook log in pages that steal your e-mail and password, or are infected with a keylogger that captures all of your usernames and passwords across several different sites. Once the scammers have collected this information they begin sending messages to friends and family of the hijacked account claiming to be in trouble -- in most cases stuck traveling abroad. The messages claim that the person has lost his or her wallet or been mugged and needs a loan (of several thousand dollars) to pay off hotel bills.

Of all the scams out there on the Internets, the Nigerian (or 419) scam is far and away the most well-known. Individuals have fallen for it and lost their entire savings, banks have fallen for it and lost millions, and even a British politician was sucked in. We're happy to help inform people about this scam so that they can avoid it, but it seems some Americans are paying attention for the wrong reason: using the scam themselves to rip off others.

Olga Domingo is a 32-year-old Californian who, according to police, may have scammed $79,000 out of 60 people using the same old trick that's become synonymous with Nigeria, by sending fake checks to people for a given amount and then tricking them into returning a real check (or wire transfer) for a smaller amount. In this case, Domingo is suspected to have gone through Craigslist listings, offered to purchase items from sellers, sent them checks for too much money and gotten refunds back. Of course, the checks she allegedly sent out were bogus, the ones she allegedly received all too real.

Last week, a woman in Edmonton, Alberta publicly told of a recent dating Web site scam that has cost her "a lot" of money, FOX News reports.

Apparently, the woman -- who has elected to remain anonymous -- is only one of several victims in the area; local detective Mark Johnson told the Edmonton Sun that other women have been scammed, as well, resulting in a total loss approaching $300,000 Canadian. While the other women have not come forth to tell their stories, the aforementioned woman did concede that she sent sums of money to her alleged online suitor several times over the course of five months. His reasons ranged from airline flights to medical procedures.

"I had so many friends tell me, 'don't send money,'" the Sun reported her as saying. "But you love that person, you believe what they say. You don't want to stop."

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. We apologize if that comes across as cynical -- we just want you to think twice next time someone calls and offers you gobs of money for no apparent reason.

Take the sad case of John Rempel of Leamington, England. The man literally gave away his entire savings (along with most of his family's) to a person claiming that Rempel had been left $12.8 million by a complete stranger who shared his last name. All Rempel had to do to inherit the fortune was :

• Pay $2,500 to have the money transferred into his name.
• Pay $25,000 in taxes on the money he hadn't actually seen yet.
• Open a new bank account in London for $5,000
• Fly to London and hand over $10,000 more dollars to people he didn't know.

As if you didn't feel bad enough about yourself after being taken in by that e-mail from the Nigerian prince enlisting your help to gain access to nonexistent millions, now you've got to worry about guarding yourself against a scam targeted at those who have already fallen victim to Internet con-men.

Those infinitely malleable 419 scams that harvest personal info from the less cautious among us are now targeting those who have already fallen for the scheme. E-mails are starting to land in in-boxes promising cash compensation to those who have been fleeced by a Nigerian based scam before.

Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing received one recently that read:

THIS IS TO OFFICIALLY INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED AMONG THE 40 LUCKY VICTIM OF SCAMMED TO BE COMPENSATED WITH $500,000.00.FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS,THIS WAS CONCLUDED BY THE SENATE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA,SENATOR wALLIS KELLY WITH DELEGATE FROM THE UNITED NATION AND WORLD BANK AT THE AFRICAN UNION SUMMIT WHICH TOOK PLACE IN ADDIS ABABA IN (ETHIOPIA) AIMED AT REDEEMING THE COUNTRY'S IMAGE AND ALSO TO TRY TO PUT ANEND TO THE INCESSANT SCAM REPORTS BY FOREIGNER ESPECIALLY FROM USA AND AROUND THE GLOBE.YOU HAVE BEEN LISTED AND APPROVED FOR THIS PAYMENT AS ONE OF THE SCAMMED VICTIMS TO BE PAID THIS AMOUNT.

As usual, you should never give out personal information via e-mail, but if you feel so inclined, you can save your fellow human some trouble and engage in a little scam baiting. Every minute spent replying to your e-mails is time the fraudsters aren't trying to prey on someone else. [From: Boing Boing]

We know that overzealous partisan hacks on both sides of the aisle will buy into any crazy accusation tossed at their political opponents, but this is the first time we've ever heard of a group getting so desperate that they were taken in by a so called 419 scam (like those Nigerian princes that keep e-mailing you about their inaccessible fortune).

In the last, floundering days of the presidential campaign McCain supporters, smelling the encroaching ass-whomping, latched on to rumors of the existence of a tape that contained Michelle Obama admitting that Barack was not a U.S. citizen. What makes this unique is that instead of being the unfounded mumblings of "strategists," the tale of the tape originated from a freely hosted Wordpress blog under the name African Press International (API). Despite glaring evidence of the falsehood of the claim (such as the fact that API was based in Norway and not registered as an NGO as they asserted), it began to ricochet around the right-wing blogosphere.

As defeat at the polls became more likely McCain supporters and conspiracy theorists began to hound API to release the tape. Of course, API hemmed and hawed, claiming to have handed it over to FOX, then demanding money, then implying a vast left-wing conspiracy was preventing the release of the tape.

Somewhere along the line, the tale morphed. Suddenly, the tape in question was of Obama Jew-bashing at a party with William Ayers, and Rashid Khalidi (whom by the way John McCain funneled $500,000 in grants to as chairman of the International Republican Institute). And now it was in the hands of the L.A. Times. Right-wing bloggers started collecting donations to buy the tape (from the L.A. Times and the API). When the bid finally hit $150,000 suddenly API demanded $2 million for the release of the tape.

Though it's not known if any money was ever actually paid to the scammers, the evolution of the scam could easily fill an entire chapter in a sociology or psychology text book. When truly desperate, people will believe almost anything you tell them as long as it agrees with their world view, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence of its falseness. [From: Hard News, Via: Boing Boing]

The trust people have in social networking sites could inadvertently lead them to fall for phishing scams, according to an online security expert who tracks so-called "419 scams," so named for the Nigerian penal code intended to prevent the scams.

The business social network site LinkedIn has an unusually high degree of trust among its users, who are almost all adults using the site to increase their business and contact networking. While LinkedIn often helps people make new connections that help them find jobs or make introductions that lead to deals or collaborations, it also appears to be ripe for those who would prey upon people who in a supposed safe setting drop their otherwise common sense, allowing strangers access to important personal information.

419 scams usually start with an message being sent to an unsuspecting email user, claiming to be from a person who has come into a large sum of money either by inheritance or settlement – but the only way they can collect on the funds is by involving a third party (what we in the biz often call a sucker) who provides a bank account in which to deposit said funds. The rub comes when money is in fact not deposited but withdrawn (surprise!) and there's no way to recall or cancel the transaction. Nigeria created the penal code to deal with this because an unusually high number of the scams originate in that country.

Until now, the most common opening salvo from a scammer came by way of an unsolicited e-mail straight to the target's in-box. Now, though, with social networking sites, especially LinkedIn, conferring almost immediate trust in a new contact, the wariness an Internet user might otherwise employ when dealing with a stranger is dropped. In its place is a willingness to cooperate with the new contact. (But we wonder, really, who needs a new contact in Nigeria, unless of course you're into oil drilling or you trace your lineage back to that country?)

Unlike regular e-mail, which can be sent out in spam like fashion to millions of people at once, social networking sites require a little extra work on the part of scammers, who have to send an invite to connect to specific e-mail addresses.

Phishing messages were up by 5 percent in 2007. Social networking sites are now the top route for phishing e-mails take take in the three countries that suffer the most from the attacks, the U.S., China and Romania, according to Internet security firm Symantec.

The advice? Be just as wary of adding new contacts to your social networking accounts as you would with any other unsolicited message.

How can you stop yourself from being a big, fat target? For starters, don't post important personal information on your social networking profile. This may seem counter-intuitive, but there are plenty of examples where proprietary company information is leaked by an employee who just isn't thinking strategically. And conversely, more than one person out there has been busted by a friend, spouse or employer for posting salacious content about a rough night out or a picture from a holiday jaunt that ended in a little less clothing than would otherwise be advised.

You've been warned. [Source: PC World.]

We're sure you've seen them in your e-mail inbox before, those messages from someone in Africa offering you millions of dollars in questionably legal funds in exchange for your assistance and -- naturally -- a few thousand dollars of your own funds. They call them 419 scams, for the article in the Nigerian criminal code that covers this particular brand of fraud.

There is very little that one can do to find and stop these fraudsters, but what you can do is waste their time. This is called scam baiting, and it involves replying to the scammers without ever giving them what they want. The idea is the more time they're talking to you, the less time they're talking to other people who might fall for the scam. It's also kind of a hoot when you see the lengths to which some spammer scammers will go to maintain their fraudster identities.

The folks at Cracked, who often entertain us, have posted the e-mail exchanges between John Cheese of Juvenile Humor and one such scammer who called himself/herself Stella Tricia Colling. We won't ruin the surprises, but rest assured this e-huckster was quite confused and derailed after getting some "real" responses to his/her initial spam e-mail. [Source: Cracked]