Scam artists have a new way of reaching you – through Facebook chat.

Many of us are pretty good at spotting bulk spam messages in our email inbox, but this scam is much more personal.

Follow KTLA Tech Reporter Rich DeMuro on Facebook or Twitter for cool apps, tech tricks & tips!

It happened to makeup artist Kelly Williams. She was on Facebook when a chat message came in from her cousin. She started to chat with him but then he started talking about how he won a Facebook lottery. Kelly got suspicious and asked him a few personal questions – when he couldn’t answer them, the chatting stopped.

I talked to Satnam Narang, a Security Response Manager at Norton. He says this is a new twist on an old scam. Basically, it’s a numbers game. It is a real person chatting – they’re trying to either get you to click a link that will deliver viruses or malware to your computer, or get you to send some money their way. The account is typically a friend who doesn’t frequent Facebook very often, since they won’t notice that their login has been compromised.

To protect yourself, be on the lookout for a scam like this and watch the links that you click and the personal information you share, even if it seems like someone you trust.

[CLICK HERE to share this information with your Facebook friends]

Here are the screenshots from the chat: