Quote Originally Posted by ribshaw View Post
Wholeheartedly agree that education and awareness are the best offense and defense. Even if a scammer is brought to justice, there no scammer pension plan that can be garnished to get the money back. For victims the money most likely will be lost forever. Its one thing to screw up and go broke at 20 or 30, but a good number of these victims are on the other side of 60 or 70 and have almost no chance to make it back.

Any dent that has been made is certainly by the people who have taken time to educate and warn others. How much that is I don't really know as billions seem to flow right to the pockets of scammers. Even here, how many people show up and argue with what can almost be considered a script why something is the real deal?
While education helps, these scams are often very sophisticated, and most people will still get scammed. Therefore law enforcement needs to go after them HARD, in order to make them think twice about starting a new one.