When it comes to "help me transfer my uncle's illegitimate gains", then I agree that takes a really greedy person to fall for that.
But our governments have trained us now to accept lotteries. And our major corporations have taught the thrill of playing sweepstakes. Is it so hard to believe that you've won an international lottery?
The elderly and the young don't think clearly. If you allow them to be ripped off on the net, you can blame the victims all you want, but the reality is that fraud is going to be rampant, because there are always going to be victims. If you want fraud reduced, you must go after the fraudsters.
And when it comes to the dating scams, you should see the two beauties that arrived in my inbox today. There's not a heterosexual man alive that wouldn't cut off his left and right arms for a chance to hold them. Would I pay for the cost of an airplane ticket to fly one of them to me. ABSOLUTELY. Would I pay it, knowing that net fraud is rampant, and that there are inexpensive ways to verify identity. No. But I'd pay $35 to verify identity of one of these babes, in a heartbeat. It's just they always go away when I mention verification. I guess I'm offending them. 
